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complaint. Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such, that once
removed from him, she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable,
and as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her at all. No wife
could be too handsome or too stately for him, according to Miss Tox's
sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that in looking for one, he should
look high. Miss Tox with tears laid down this proposition, and fully
admitted it, twenty times a day. She never recalled the lofty manner in
which Mr Dombey had made her subservient to his convenience and caprices,
and had graciously permitted her to be one of the nurses of his little son.
She only thought, in her own words, 'that she had passed a great many happy
hours in that house, which she must ever remember with gratification, and
that she could never cease to regard Mr Dombey as one of the most impressive
and dignified of men.'
Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa, and being shy of the
Major (whom she viewed with some distrust now), Miss Tox found it very
irksome to know nothing of what was going on in Mr Dombey's establishment.
And as she really had got into the habit of considering Dombey and Son as
the pivot on which the world in general turned, she resolved, rather than be
ignorant of intelligence which so strongly interested her, to cultivate her
old acquaintance, Mrs Richards, who she knew, since her last memorable
appearance before Mr Dombey, was in the habit of sometimes holding
communication with his servants. Perhaps Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle
family, had the tender motive hidden in her breast of having somebody to
whom she could talk about Mr Dombey, no matter how humble that somebody
might be.
At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her
steps one evening, what time Mr Toodle, cindery and swart, was refreshing
himself with tea, in the bosom of his family. Mr Toodle had only three
stages of existence. He was either taking refreshment in the bosom just
mentioned, or he was tearing through the country at from twenty-five to
fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in
a whirlwind or a calm, and a peaceable, contented, easy-going man Mr Toodle
was in either state, who seemed to have made over all his own inheritance of
fuming and fretting to the engines with which he was connected, which
panted, and gasped, and chafed, and wore themselves out, in a most unsparing
manner, while Mr Toodle led a mild and equable life.
'Polly, my gal,' said Mr Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, and
two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about - Mr Toodle was
never out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand - 'you ain't
seen our Biler lately, have you?'
'No,' replied Polly, 'but he's almost certain to look in tonight. It's
his right evening, and he's very regular.'
'I suppose,' said Mr Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, 'as our
Biler is a doin' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?'
'Oh! he's a doing beautiful!' responded Polly.
'He ain't got to be at all secret-like - has he, Polly?' inquired Mr
Toodle.
'No!' said Mrs Toodle, plumply.
'I'm glad he ain't got to be at all secret-like, Polly,' observed Mr
Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter
with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, 'because that don't look
well; do it, Polly?'
'Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!'
'You see, my boys and gals,' said Mr Toodle, looking round upon his
family, 'wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you can't
do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels,
don't you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let's know
where you are.
The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their
resolution to profit by the paternal advice.
'But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?' asked his wife,
anxiously.
'Polly, old ooman,' said Mr Toodle, 'I don't know as I said it
partickler along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I comes to
a branch; I takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets
coupled on to him, afore I knows where I am, or where they comes from. What
a Junction a man's thoughts is,' said Mr Toodle, 'to-be-sure!'
This profound reflection Mr Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea,
and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging
his young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he
was uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of 'a sight of
mugs,' before his thirst was appeased.
In satisfying himself, however, Mr Toodle was not regardless of the
younger branches about him, who, although they had made their own evening
repast, were on the look-out for irregular morsels, as possessing a relish.
These he distributed now and then to the expectant circle, by holding out
great wedges of bread and butter, to be bitten at by the family in lawful
succession, and by serving out small doses of tea in like manner with a
spoon; which snacks had such a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles,
that, after partaking of the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy
among themselves, and stood on one leg apiece, and hopped, and indulged in
other saltatory tokens of gladness. These vents for their excitement found,
they gradually closed about Mr Toodle again, and eyed him hard as he got
through more bread and butter and tea; affecting, however, to have no
further expectations of their own in reference to those viands, but to be
conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering confidentially.
Mr Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful
example to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young
Toodles on his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating
the rest over a barrier of bread and butter, when Rob the Grinder, in his
sou'wester hat and mourning slops, presented himself, and was received with
a general rush of brothers and sisters.
'Well, mother!' said Rob, dutifully kissing her; 'how are you, mother?'
'There's my boy!' cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the back.
'Secret! Bless you, father, not he!'
This was intended for Mr Toodle's private edification, but Rob the
Grinder, whose withers were not unwrung, caught the words as they were
spoken.
'What! father's been a saying something more again me, has he?' cried
the injured innocent. 'Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a cove has once
gone a little wrong, a cove's own father should be always a throwing it in
his face behind his back! It's enough,' cried Rob, resorting to his
coat-cuff in anguish of spirit, 'to make a cove go and do something, out of
spite!'
'My poor boy!' cried Polly, 'father didn't mean anything.'
'If father didn't mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder, 'why
did he go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of me as my
own father does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd take and chop my
head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, and I'd much rather he
did that than t'other.'
At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic
effect, which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to cry
for him, for they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good boys and
girls; and this so touched the youngest Toodle but one, who was easily
moved, that it touched him not only in his spirit but in his wind too;
making him so purple that Mr Toodle in consternation carried him out to the
water-butt, and would have put him under the tap, but for his being
recovered by the sight of that instrument.
Matters having reached this point, Mr Toodle explained, and the
virtuous feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, and
harmony reigned again.
'Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father, returning to
his tea with new strength.
'No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.'
'And how is master, Rob?' said Polly.
'Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no
bis'ness done, you see. He don't know anything about it - the Cap'en don't.
There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, "I want a
so-and-so," he says - some hard name or another. "A which?" says the Cap'en.
"A so-and-so," says the man. "Brother," says the Cap'en, "will you take a
observation round the shop." "Well," says the man, "I've done" "Do you see
wot you want?" says the Cap'en "No, I don't," says the man. "Do you know it
wen you do see it?" says the Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Why, then
I tell you wot, my lad," says the Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask wot
it's like, outside, for no more don't I!"'
'That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly.
'Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never
see. He ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that ain't
much to me, for I don't think I shall stop with him long.'
'Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr Toodle opened
his eyes.
'Not in that place, p'raps,' returned the Grinder, with a wink. 'I
shouldn't wonder - friends at court you know - but never you mind, mother,
just now; I'm all right, that's all.'
The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the Grinder's
mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing which Mr Toodle
had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led to a renewal of his
wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but for the opportune arrival of
another visitor, who, to Polly's great surprise, appeared at the door,
smiling patronage and friendship on all there.
'How do you do, Mrs Richards?' said Miss Tox. 'I have come to see you.
May I come in?'
The cheery face of Mrs Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and Miss
Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and grab fully recognising Mr Toodle on
her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in the first place
she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.
The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the
frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky
planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by
having fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling)
deep on his head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again;
which accident presenting to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of
his passing the rest of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from
his friends and family, caused him to struggle with great violence, and to
utter suffocating cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very
hot, and red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.
'You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I daresay,' said Miss Tox to Mr
Toodle.
'No, Ma'am, no,' said Toodle. 'But we've all on us got a little older
since then.'
'And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
'Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. 'How do you find yourself,
Ma'am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We must all expect to
grow into 'em, as we gets on.'
'Thank you,' said Miss Tox. 'I have not felt any inconvenience from
that disorder yet.'
'You're wery fortunate, Ma'am,' returned Mr Toodle. 'Many people at
your time of life, Ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother - ' But
catching his wife's eye here, Mr Toodle judiciously buried the rest in
another mug of tea
'You never mean to say, Mrs Richards,' cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob,
'that that is your - '
'Eldest, Ma'am,' said Polly. 'Yes, indeed, it is. That's the little
fellow, Ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.'
'This here, Ma'am,' said Toodle, 'is him with the short legs - and they
was,' said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, 'unusual short for
leathers - as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.'
The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a
peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and
congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her,
called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.
'And now, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox, - 'and you too, Sir,'
addressing Toodle - 'I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here
for. You may be aware, Mrs Richards - and, possibly, you may be aware too,
Sir - that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my
friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now.'
Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed as
much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss
Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
'Of course,' said Miss Tox, 'how our little coolness has arisen is of
no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me to
say, that I have the greatest possible respect for, and interest in, Mr
Dombey;' Miss Tox's voice faltered; 'and everything that relates to him.'
Mr Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it said,
and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a difficult subject.
'Pray don't say so, Sir, if you please,' returned Miss Tox. 'Let me
entreat you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. Such
observations cannot but be very painful to me; and to a gentleman, whose
mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours is, can afford no permanent
satisfaction.'
Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark
that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.
'All that I wish to say, Mrs Richards,' resumed Miss Tox, - 'and I
address myself to you too, Sir, - is this. That any intelligence of the
proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health of
the family, that reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me. That I
shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs Richards about the family, and
about old time And as Mrs Richards and I never had the least difference
(though I could wish now that we had been better acquainted, but I have no
one but myself to blame for that), I hope she will not object to our being
very good friends now, and to my coming backwards and forwards here, when I
like, without being a stranger. Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,' said Miss
Tox - earnestly, 'that you will take this, as I mean it, like a
good-humoured creature, as you always were.'
Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr Toodle didn't know whether he
was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
'You see, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox - 'and I hope you see too, Sir -
there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to you, if you
will make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be delighted to be so. For
instance, I can teach your children something. I shall bring a few little
books, if you'll allow me, and some work, and of an evening now and then,
they'll learn - dear me, they'll learn a great deal, I trust, and be a
credit to their teacher.'
Mr Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head
approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning satisfaction.
'Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss
Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards
will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without
minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, Sir,
won't you?'
'Thank'ee, Mum,' said Mr Toodle. 'Yes; I'll take my bit of backer.'
'Very good of you to say so, Sir,' rejoined Miss Tox, 'and I really do
assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and that
whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you will more
than pay back to me, if you'll enter into this little bargain comfortably,
and easily, and good-naturedly, without another word about it.'
The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so
much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary
examination of the children all round - which Mr Toodle much admired - and
booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This
ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until after
their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle
fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The gallant
Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to attend her to her
own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be seen home by a youth
whom Mr Dombey had first inducted into those manly garments which are rarely
mentioned by name,' she very readily accepted the proposal.
After shaking hands with Mr Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the
children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited popularity, and
carrying away with her so light a heart that it might have given Mrs Chick
offence if that good lady could have weighed it.
Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox
desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, as she
afterwards expressed it to his mother, 'drew him out,' upon the road.
He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was
charmed with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came - like
wire. There never was a better or more promising youth - a more
affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man - than
Rob drew out, that night.
'I am quite glad,' said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, 'to know
you. I hope you'll consider me your friend, and that you'll come and see me
as often as you like. Do you keep a money-box?'
'Yes, Ma'am,' returned Rob; 'I'm saving up, against I've got enough to
put in the Bank, Ma'am.
'Very laudable indeed,' said Miss Tox. 'I'm glad to hear it. Put this
half-crown into it, if you please.'
'Oh thank you, Ma'am,' replied Rob, 'but really I couldn't think of
depriving you.'
'I commend your independent spirit,' said Miss Tox, 'but it's no
deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it, as a
mark of my good-will. Good-night, Robin.'
'Good-night, Ma'am,' said Rob, 'and thank you!'
Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a pieman.
But they never taught honour at the Grinders' School, where the system that
prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. Insomuch,
that many of the friends and masters of past Grinders said, if this were
what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more
rational said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers of the
Grinders' Company were always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who
had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they
could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of
those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the Grinders'
Institution.
Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that the
year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during which his
friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet accompanying the letter
he had left for him, was now nearly expired, and Captain Cuttle began to
look at it, of an evening, with feelings of mystery and uneasiness
The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening the
parcel one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would have thought
of opening himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely brought it out, at a
certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it on the table, and sat
gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke, in silent gravity, for two
or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when he had contemplated it thus for a
pretty long while, the Captain would hitch his chair, by degrees, farther
and farther off, as if to get beyond the range of its fascination; but if
this were his design, he never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by
the parlour wall, the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in
thoughtful wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image
immediately followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or
took up an advantageous position on the whitewash.
In respect of Heart's Delight, the Captain's parental and admiration
knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr Carker, Captain Cuttle
had come to entertain doubts whether his former intervention in behalf of
that young lady and his dear boy Wal'r, had proved altogether so favourable
as he could have wished, and as he at the time believed. The Captain was
troubled with a serious misgiving that he had done more harm than good, in
short; and in his remorse and modesty he made the best atonement he could
think of, by putting himself out of the way of doing any harm to anyone,
and, as it were, throwing himself overboard for a dangerous person.
Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never went
near Mr Dombey's house, or reported himself in any way to Florence or Miss
Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the occasion of his next
visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he thanked him for his
company, but had cut himself adrift from all such acquaintance, as he didn't
know what magazine he mightn't blow up, without meaning of it. In this
self-imposed retirement, the Captain passed whole days and weeks without
interchanging a word with anyone but Rob the Grinder, whom he esteemed as a
pattern of disinterested attachment and fidelity. In this retirement, the
Captain, gazing at the packet of an evening, would sit smoking, and thinking
of Florence and poor Walter, until they both seemed to his homely fancy to
be dead, and to have passed away into eternal youth, the beautiful and
innocent children of his first remembrance.
The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own
improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man was
generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for one hour,
every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that all books were
true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable facts. On Sunday
nights, the Captain always read for himself, before going to bed, a certain
Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and although he was accustomed to
quote the text, without book, after his own manner, he appeared to read it
with as reverent an understanding of its heavenly spirit, as if he had got
it all by heart in Greek, and had been able to write any number of fierce
theological disquisitions on its every phrase.
Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the inspired writings, under the
admirable system of the Grinders' School, had been developed by a perpetual
bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper names of all the
tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of hard verses, especially
by way of punishment, and by the parading of him at six years old in leather
breeches, three times a Sunday, very high up, in a very hot church, with a
great organ buzzing against his drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee -
Rob the Grinder made a mighty show of being edified when the Captain ceased
to read, and generally yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress.
The latter fact being never so much as suspected by the good Captain.
Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business; took to keeping books. In
these he entered observations on the weather, and on the currents of the
waggons and other vehicles: which he observed, in that quarter, to set
westward in the morning and during the greater part of the day, and eastward
towards the evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in one week, who
'spoke him' - so the Captain entered it- on the subject of spectacles, and
who, without positively purchasing, said they would look in again, the
Captain decided that the business was improving, and made an entry in the
day-book to that effect: the wind then blowing (which he first recorded)
pretty fresh, west and by north; having changed in the night.
One of the Captain's chief difficulties was Mr Toots, who called
frequently, and who without saying much seemed to have an idea that the
little back parlour was an eligible room to chuckle in, as he would sit and
avail himself of its accommodations in that regard by the half-hour
together, without at all advancing in intimacy with the Captain. The
Captain, rendered cautious by his late experience, was unable quite to
satisfy his mind whether Mr Toots was the mild subject he appeared to be, or
was a profoundly artful and dissimulating hypocrite. His frequent reference
to Miss Dombey was suspicious; but the Captain had a secret kindness for Mr
Toots's apparent reliance on him, and forbore to decide against him for the
present; merely eyeing him, with a sagacity not to be described, whenever he
approached the subject that was nearest to his heart.
'Captain Gills,' blurted out Mr Toots, one day all at once, as his
manner was, 'do you think you could think favourably of that proposition of
mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?'
'Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,' replied the Captain, who had at
length concluded on a course of action; 'I've been turning that there,
over.'
'Captain Gills, it's very kind of you,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I'm much
obliged to you. Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would be a
charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would.'
'You see, brother,' argued the Captain slowly, 'I don't know you.
'But you never can know me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, steadfast
to his point, 'if you don't give me the pleasure of your acquaintance.
The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this remark,
and looked at Mr Toots as if he thought there was a great deal more in him
than he had expected.
'Well said, my lad,' observed the Captain, nodding his head
thoughtfully; 'and true. Now look'ee here: You've made some observations to
me, which gives me to understand as you admire a certain sweet creetur.
Hey?'
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, gesticulating violently with the hand
in which he held his hat, 'Admiration is not the word. Upon my honour, you
have no conception what my feelings are. If I could be dyed black, and made
Miss Dombey's slave, I should consider it a compliment. If, at the sacrifice
of all my property, I could get transmigrated into Miss Dombey's dog - I - I
really think I should never leave off wagging my tail. I should be so
perfectly happy, Captain Gills!'
Mr Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his
bosom with deep emotion.
'My lad,' returned the Captain, moved to compassion, 'if you're in
arnest -
'Captain Gills,' cried Mr Toots, 'I'm in such a state of mind, and am
so dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot piece of
iron, or a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax, Or anything of
that sort, I should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief to my feelings.' And
Mr Toots looked hurriedly about the room, as if for some sufficiently
painful means of accomplishing his dread purpose.
The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his face
down with his heavy hand - making his nose more mottled in the process - and
planting himself before Mr Toots, and hooking him by the lapel of his coat,
addressed him in these words, while Mr Toots looked up into his face, with
much attention and some wonder.
'If you're in arnest, you see, my lad,' said the Captain, 'you're a
object of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown of a
Briton's head, for which you'll overhaul the constitution as laid down in
Rule Britannia, and, when found, that is the charter as them garden angels
was a singing of, so many times over. Stand by! This here proposal o' you'rn
takes me a little aback. And why? Because I holds my own only, you
understand, in these here waters, and haven't got no consort, and may be
don't wish for none. Steady! You hailed me first, along of a certain young
lady, as you was chartered by. Now if you and me is to keep one another's
company at all, that there young creetur's name must never be named nor
referred to. I don't know what harm mayn't have been done by naming of it
too free, afore now, and thereby I brings up short. D'ye make me out pretty
clear, brother?'
'Well, you'll excuse me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, 'if I don't
quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I - it's a hard thing, Captain
Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really have got such a
dreadful load here!' - Mr Toots pathetically touched his shirt-front with
both hands - 'that I feel night and day, exactly as if somebody was sitting
upon me.
'Them,' said the Captain, 'is the terms I offer. If they're hard upon
you, brother, as mayhap they are, give 'em a wide berth, sheer off, and part
company cheerily!'
'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I hardly know how it is, but after
what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I - I feel that I'd
rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk about her in almost
anybody else's. Therefore, Captain Gills, if you'll give me the pleasure of
your acquaintance, I shall be very happy to accept it on your own
conditions. I wish to be honourable, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, holding
back his extended hand for a moment, 'and therefore I am obliged to say that
I can not help thinking about Miss Dombey. It's impossible for me to make a
promise not to think about her.'
'My lad,' said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr Toots was much improved
by this candid avowal, 'a man's thoughts is like the winds, and nobody can't
answer for 'em for certain, any length of time together. Is it a treaty as
to words?'
'As to words, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I think I can bind
myself.'
Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and the
Captain with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension, bestowed his
acquaintance upon him formally. Mr Toots seemed much relieved and gladdened
by the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously during the remainder of his
visit. The Captain, for his part, was not ill pleased to occupy that
position of patronage, and was exceedingly well satisfied by his own
prudence and foresight.
But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a
surprise that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth, than
Rob the Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same table, and
bending meekly over his cup and saucer, having taken sidelong observations
of his master for some time, who was reading the newspaper with great
difficulty, but much dignity, through his glasses, broke silence by saying -
'Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn't be in want of any
pigeons, may you, Sir?'
'No, my lad,' replied the Captain.
'Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain,' said Rob.
'Ay, ay?' cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a little.
'Yes; I'm going, Captain, if you please,' said Rob.
'Going? Where are you going?' asked the Captain, looking round at him
over the glasses.
'What? didn't you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?' asked
Rob, with a sneaking smile.
The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and brought
his eyes to bear on the deserter.
'Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you'd have
known that beforehand, perhaps,' said Rob, rubbing his hands, and getting
up. 'If you could be so good as provide yourself soon, Captain, it would be
a great convenience to me. You couldn't provide yourself by to-morrow
morning, I am afraid, Captain: could you, do you think?'
'And you're a going to desert your colours, are you, my lad?' said the
Captain, after a long examination of his face.
'Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain,' cried the tender Rob,
injured and indignant in a moment, 'that he can't give lawful warning,
without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You haven't any
right to call a poor cove names, Captain. It ain't because I'm a servant and
you're a master, that you're to go and libel me. What wrong have I done?
Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is, will you?'
The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye.
'Come, Captain,' cried the injured youth, 'give my crime a name! What
have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? have I set the
house a-fire? If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and try it? But to
take away the character of a lad that's been a good servant to you, because
he can't afford to stand in his own light for your good, what a injury it
is, and what a bad return for faithful service! This is the way young coves
is spiled and drove wrong. I wonder at you, Captain, I do.'
All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and
backing carefully towards the door.
'And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?' said the Captain,
eyeing him intently.
'Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another
berth,' cried Rob, backing more and more; 'a better berth than I've got
here, and one where I don't so much as want your good word, Captain, which
is fort'nate for me, after all the dirt you've throw'd at me, because I'm
poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Yes, I have
got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving you unprovided, Captain, I'd
go to it now, sooner than I'd take them names from you, because I'm poor,
and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Why do you reproach
me for being poor, and not standing in my own light for your good, Captain?
How can you so demean yourself?'
'Look ye here, my boy,' replied the peaceful Captain. 'Don't you pay
out no more of them words.'
'Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,' retorted
the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the shop.
'I'd sooner you took my blood than my character.'
'Because,' pursued the Captain calmly, 'you have heerd, may be, of such
a thing as a rope's end.'
'Oh, have I though, Captain?' cried the taunting Grinder. 'No I
haven't. I never heerd of any such a article!'
'Well,' said the Captain, 'it's my belief as you'll know more about it
pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your signals,
my lad. You may go.'
'Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?' cried Rob, exulting in his
success. 'But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not to
take away my character again, because you send me off of your own accord.
And you're not to stop any of my wages, Captain!'
His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and
telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling and
sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the pieces one by
one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied them up separately in knots
in his pockethandkerchief; then he ascended to the roof of the house and
filled his hat and pockets with pigeons; then, came down to his bed under
the counter and made up his bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he
were cut to the heart by old associations; then he whined, 'Good-night,
Captain. I leave you without malice!' and then, going out upon the
door-step, pulled the little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and
went away down the street grinning triumphantly.
The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if
nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with the
greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand, though
he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one column and
down another all through the newspaper.
It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself quite
abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's Delight
were lost to him indeed, and now Mr Carker deceived and jeered him cruelly.
They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he had held forth many a
time on the recollections that were warm within him; he had believed in the
false Rob, and had been glad to believe in him; he had made a companion of
him as the last of the old ship's company; he had taken the command of the
little Midshipman with him at his right hand; he had meant to do his duty by
him, and had felt almost as kindly towards the boy as if they had been
shipwrecked and cast upon a desert place together. And now, that the false
Rob had brought distrust, treachery, and meanness into the very parlour,
which was a kind of sacred place, Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour
might have gone down next, and not surprised him much by its sinking, or
given him any very great concern.
Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention and
no comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing whatever about
Rob to himself, or admitted to himself that he was thinking about him, or
would recognise in the most distant manner that Rob had anything to do with
his feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe.
In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over to
Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a private
watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the shutters of the
wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then called in at the
eating-house to diminish by one half the daily rations theretofore supplied
to the Midshipman, and at the public-house to stop the traitor's beer. 'My
young man,' said the Captain, in explanation to the young lady at the bar,
'my young man having bettered himself, Miss.' Lastly, the Captain resolved
to take possession of the bed under the counter, and to turn in there o'
nights instead of upstairs, as sole guardian of the property.
From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on his
glazed hat at six o'clock in the morning, with the solitary air of Crusoe
finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his fears of a
visitation from the savage tribe, MacStinger, were somewhat cooled, as
similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used to be by the
lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the cannibals, he still
observed a regular routine of defensive operations, and never encountered a
bonnet without previous survey from his castle of retreat. In the meantime
(during which he received no call from Mr Toots, who wrote to say he was out
of town) his own voice began to have a strange sound in his ears; and he
acquired such habits of profound meditation from much polishing and stowing
away of the stock, and from much sitting behind the counter reading, or
looking out of window, that the red rim made on his forehead by the hard
glazed hat, sometimes ached again with excess of reflection.
The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle deemed it expedient to open
the packet; but as he had always designed doing this in the presence of Rob
the Grinder, who had brought it to him, and as he had an idea that it would
be regular and ship-shape to open it in the presence of somebody, he was
sadly put to it for want of a witness. In this difficulty, he hailed one day
with unusual delight the announcement in the Shipping Intelligence of the
arrival of the Cautious Clara, Captain John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage;
and to that philosopher immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining
inviolable secrecy as to his place of residence, and requesting to be
favoured with an early visit, in the evening season.
Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took some
days to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had received a
letter to this effect. But when he had grappled with the fact, and mastered
it, he promptly sent his boy with the message, 'He's a coming to-night.' Who
being instructed to deliver those words and disappear, fulfilled his mission
like a tarry spirit, charged with a mysterious warning.
The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes and
rum and water, and awaited his visitor in the back parlour. At the hour of
eight, a deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the shop-door,
succeeded by the knocking of a stick on the panel, announced to the
listening ear of Captain Cuttle, that Bunsby was alongside; whom he
instantly admitted, shaggy and loose, and with his stolid mahogany visage,
as usual, appearing to have no consciousness of anything before it, but to
be attentively observing something that was taking place in quite another
part of the world.
'Bunsby,' said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, 'what cheer, my
lad, what cheer?'
'Shipmet,' replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any sign
on the part of the Commander himself, 'hearty, hearty.'
'Bunsby!' said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his
genius, 'here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter than
di'monds - and give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines to me like
di'monds bright, for which you'll overhaul the Stanfell's Budget, and when
found make a note.' Here you are, a man as gave an opinion in this here very
place, that has come true, every letter on it,' which the Captain sincerely
believed.
'Ay, ay?' growled Bunsby.
'Every letter,' said the Captain.
'For why?' growled Bunsby, looking at his friend for the first time.
'Which way? If so, why not? Therefore.' With these oracular words - they
seemed almost to make the Captain giddy; they launched him upon such a sea
of speculation and conjecture - the sage submitted to be helped off with his
pilot-coat, and accompanied his friend into the back parlour, where his hand
presently alighted on the rum-bottle, from which he brewed a stiff glass of
grog; and presently afterwards on a pipe, which he filled, lighted, and
began to smoke.
Captain Cuttle, imitating his visitor in the matter of these
particulars, though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great Commander
was far above his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the fireside,
observing him respectfully, and as if he waited for some encouragement or
expression of curiosity on Bunsby's part which should lead him to his own
affairs. But as the mahogany philosopher gave no evidence of being sentient
of anything but warmth and tobacco, except once, when taking his pipe from
his lips to make room for his glass, he incidentally remarked with exceeding
gruffness, that his name was Jack Bunsby - a declaration that presented but
small opening for conversation - the Captain bespeaking his attention in a
short complimentary exordium, narrated the whole history of Uncle Sol's
departure, with the change it had produced in his own life and fortunes; and
concluded by placing the packet on the table.
After a long pause, Mr Bunsby nodded his head.
'Open?' said the Captain.
Bunsby nodded again.
The Captain accordingly broke the seal, and disclosed to view two
folded papers, of which he severally read the endorsements, thus: 'Last Will
and Testament of Solomon Gills.' 'Letter for Ned Cuttle.'
Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, seemed to listen for
the contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat, and read the
letter aloud.
'"My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies" - '
Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked fixedly
at the coast of Greenland.
' - "in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that if
you were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or accompany me;
and therefore I kept it secret. If you ever read this letter, Ned, I am
likely to be dead. You will easily forgive an old friend's folly then, and
will feel for the restlessness and uncertainty in which he wandered away on
removed from him, she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable,
and as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her at all. No wife
could be too handsome or too stately for him, according to Miss Tox's
sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that in looking for one, he should
look high. Miss Tox with tears laid down this proposition, and fully
admitted it, twenty times a day. She never recalled the lofty manner in
which Mr Dombey had made her subservient to his convenience and caprices,
and had graciously permitted her to be one of the nurses of his little son.
She only thought, in her own words, 'that she had passed a great many happy
hours in that house, which she must ever remember with gratification, and
that she could never cease to regard Mr Dombey as one of the most impressive
and dignified of men.'
Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa, and being shy of the
Major (whom she viewed with some distrust now), Miss Tox found it very
irksome to know nothing of what was going on in Mr Dombey's establishment.
And as she really had got into the habit of considering Dombey and Son as
the pivot on which the world in general turned, she resolved, rather than be
ignorant of intelligence which so strongly interested her, to cultivate her
old acquaintance, Mrs Richards, who she knew, since her last memorable
appearance before Mr Dombey, was in the habit of sometimes holding
communication with his servants. Perhaps Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle
family, had the tender motive hidden in her breast of having somebody to
whom she could talk about Mr Dombey, no matter how humble that somebody
might be.
At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her
steps one evening, what time Mr Toodle, cindery and swart, was refreshing
himself with tea, in the bosom of his family. Mr Toodle had only three
stages of existence. He was either taking refreshment in the bosom just
mentioned, or he was tearing through the country at from twenty-five to
fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in
a whirlwind or a calm, and a peaceable, contented, easy-going man Mr Toodle
was in either state, who seemed to have made over all his own inheritance of
fuming and fretting to the engines with which he was connected, which
panted, and gasped, and chafed, and wore themselves out, in a most unsparing
manner, while Mr Toodle led a mild and equable life.
'Polly, my gal,' said Mr Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee, and
two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about - Mr Toodle was
never out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand - 'you ain't
seen our Biler lately, have you?'
'No,' replied Polly, 'but he's almost certain to look in tonight. It's
his right evening, and he's very regular.'
'I suppose,' said Mr Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, 'as our
Biler is a doin' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?'
'Oh! he's a doing beautiful!' responded Polly.
'He ain't got to be at all secret-like - has he, Polly?' inquired Mr
Toodle.
'No!' said Mrs Toodle, plumply.
'I'm glad he ain't got to be at all secret-like, Polly,' observed Mr
Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter
with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, 'because that don't look
well; do it, Polly?'
'Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!'
'You see, my boys and gals,' said Mr Toodle, looking round upon his
family, 'wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you can't
do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels,
don't you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let's know
where you are.
The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their
resolution to profit by the paternal advice.
'But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?' asked his wife,
anxiously.
'Polly, old ooman,' said Mr Toodle, 'I don't know as I said it
partickler along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I comes to
a branch; I takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets
coupled on to him, afore I knows where I am, or where they comes from. What
a Junction a man's thoughts is,' said Mr Toodle, 'to-be-sure!'
This profound reflection Mr Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea,
and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging
his young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he
was uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of 'a sight of
mugs,' before his thirst was appeased.
In satisfying himself, however, Mr Toodle was not regardless of the
younger branches about him, who, although they had made their own evening
repast, were on the look-out for irregular morsels, as possessing a relish.
These he distributed now and then to the expectant circle, by holding out
great wedges of bread and butter, to be bitten at by the family in lawful
succession, and by serving out small doses of tea in like manner with a
spoon; which snacks had such a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles,
that, after partaking of the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy
among themselves, and stood on one leg apiece, and hopped, and indulged in
other saltatory tokens of gladness. These vents for their excitement found,
they gradually closed about Mr Toodle again, and eyed him hard as he got
through more bread and butter and tea; affecting, however, to have no
further expectations of their own in reference to those viands, but to be
conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering confidentially.
Mr Toodle, in the midst of this family group, and setting an awful
example to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young
Toodles on his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating
the rest over a barrier of bread and butter, when Rob the Grinder, in his
sou'wester hat and mourning slops, presented himself, and was received with
a general rush of brothers and sisters.
'Well, mother!' said Rob, dutifully kissing her; 'how are you, mother?'
'There's my boy!' cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the back.
'Secret! Bless you, father, not he!'
This was intended for Mr Toodle's private edification, but Rob the
Grinder, whose withers were not unwrung, caught the words as they were
spoken.
'What! father's been a saying something more again me, has he?' cried
the injured innocent. 'Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a cove has once
gone a little wrong, a cove's own father should be always a throwing it in
his face behind his back! It's enough,' cried Rob, resorting to his
coat-cuff in anguish of spirit, 'to make a cove go and do something, out of
spite!'
'My poor boy!' cried Polly, 'father didn't mean anything.'
'If father didn't mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder, 'why
did he go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of me as my
own father does. What a unnatural thing! I wish somebody'd take and chop my
head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, and I'd much rather he
did that than t'other.'
At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked; a pathetic
effect, which the Grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to cry
for him, for they ought to hate him, they ought, if they was good boys and
girls; and this so touched the youngest Toodle but one, who was easily
moved, that it touched him not only in his spirit but in his wind too;
making him so purple that Mr Toodle in consternation carried him out to the
water-butt, and would have put him under the tap, but for his being
recovered by the sight of that instrument.
Matters having reached this point, Mr Toodle explained, and the
virtuous feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, and
harmony reigned again.
'Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father, returning to
his tea with new strength.
'No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.'
'And how is master, Rob?' said Polly.
'Well, I don't know, mother; not much to boast on. There ain't no
bis'ness done, you see. He don't know anything about it - the Cap'en don't.
There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, "I want a
so-and-so," he says - some hard name or another. "A which?" says the Cap'en.
"A so-and-so," says the man. "Brother," says the Cap'en, "will you take a
observation round the shop." "Well," says the man, "I've done" "Do you see
wot you want?" says the Cap'en "No, I don't," says the man. "Do you know it
wen you do see it?" says the Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Why, then
I tell you wot, my lad," says the Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask wot
it's like, outside, for no more don't I!"'
'That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly.
'Money, mother! He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never
see. He ain't a bad master though, I'll say that for him. But that ain't
much to me, for I don't think I shall stop with him long.'
'Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr Toodle opened
his eyes.
'Not in that place, p'raps,' returned the Grinder, with a wink. 'I
shouldn't wonder - friends at court you know - but never you mind, mother,
just now; I'm all right, that's all.'
The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the Grinder's
mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing which Mr Toodle
had, by implication, attributed to him, might have led to a renewal of his
wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but for the opportune arrival of
another visitor, who, to Polly's great surprise, appeared at the door,
smiling patronage and friendship on all there.
'How do you do, Mrs Richards?' said Miss Tox. 'I have come to see you.
May I come in?'
The cheery face of Mrs Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and Miss
Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and grab fully recognising Mr Toodle on
her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in the first place
she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.
The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the
frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky
planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by
having fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling)
deep on his head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again;
which accident presenting to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of
his passing the rest of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from
his friends and family, caused him to struggle with great violence, and to
utter suffocating cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very
hot, and red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.
'You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I daresay,' said Miss Tox to Mr
Toodle.
'No, Ma'am, no,' said Toodle. 'But we've all on us got a little older
since then.'
'And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
'Hearty, Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. 'How do you find yourself,
Ma'am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We must all expect to
grow into 'em, as we gets on.'
'Thank you,' said Miss Tox. 'I have not felt any inconvenience from
that disorder yet.'
'You're wery fortunate, Ma'am,' returned Mr Toodle. 'Many people at
your time of life, Ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother - ' But
catching his wife's eye here, Mr Toodle judiciously buried the rest in
another mug of tea
'You never mean to say, Mrs Richards,' cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob,
'that that is your - '
'Eldest, Ma'am,' said Polly. 'Yes, indeed, it is. That's the little
fellow, Ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.'
'This here, Ma'am,' said Toodle, 'is him with the short legs - and they
was,' said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, 'unusual short for
leathers - as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.'
The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a
peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and
congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her,
called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.
'And now, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox, - 'and you too, Sir,'
addressing Toodle - 'I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here
for. You may be aware, Mrs Richards - and, possibly, you may be aware too,
Sir - that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my
friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now.'
Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed as
much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss
Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
'Of course,' said Miss Tox, 'how our little coolness has arisen is of
no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me to
say, that I have the greatest possible respect for, and interest in, Mr
Dombey;' Miss Tox's voice faltered; 'and everything that relates to him.'
Mr Toodle, enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it said,
and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a difficult subject.
'Pray don't say so, Sir, if you please,' returned Miss Tox. 'Let me
entreat you not to say so, Sir, either now, or at any future time. Such
observations cannot but be very painful to me; and to a gentleman, whose
mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours is, can afford no permanent
satisfaction.'
Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark
that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.
'All that I wish to say, Mrs Richards,' resumed Miss Tox, - 'and I
address myself to you too, Sir, - is this. That any intelligence of the
proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health of
the family, that reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me. That I
shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs Richards about the family, and
about old time And as Mrs Richards and I never had the least difference
(though I could wish now that we had been better acquainted, but I have no
one but myself to blame for that), I hope she will not object to our being
very good friends now, and to my coming backwards and forwards here, when I
like, without being a stranger. Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,' said Miss
Tox - earnestly, 'that you will take this, as I mean it, like a
good-humoured creature, as you always were.'
Polly was gratified, and showed it. Mr Toodle didn't know whether he
was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
'You see, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox - 'and I hope you see too, Sir -
there are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to you, if you
will make no stranger of me; and in which I shall be delighted to be so. For
instance, I can teach your children something. I shall bring a few little
books, if you'll allow me, and some work, and of an evening now and then,
they'll learn - dear me, they'll learn a great deal, I trust, and be a
credit to their teacher.'
Mr Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head
approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning satisfaction.
'Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way,' said Miss
Tox, 'and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs Richards
will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without
minding me: and you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, Sir,
won't you?'
'Thank'ee, Mum,' said Mr Toodle. 'Yes; I'll take my bit of backer.'
'Very good of you to say so, Sir,' rejoined Miss Tox, 'and I really do
assure you now, unfeignedly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and that
whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you will more
than pay back to me, if you'll enter into this little bargain comfortably,
and easily, and good-naturedly, without another word about it.'
The bargain was ratified on the spot; and Miss Tox found herself so
much at home already, that without delay she instituted a preliminary
examination of the children all round - which Mr Toodle much admired - and
booked their ages, names, and acquirements, on a piece of paper. This
ceremony, and a little attendant gossip, prolonged the time until after
their usual hour of going to bed, and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle
fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The gallant
Grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to attend her to her
own door; and as it was something to Miss Tox to be seen home by a youth
whom Mr Dombey had first inducted into those manly garments which are rarely
mentioned by name,' she very readily accepted the proposal.
After shaking hands with Mr Toodle and Polly, and kissing all the
children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited popularity, and
carrying away with her so light a heart that it might have given Mrs Chick
offence if that good lady could have weighed it.
Rob the Grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox
desired him to keep beside her, for conversational purposes; and, as she
afterwards expressed it to his mother, 'drew him out,' upon the road.
He drew out so bright, and clear, and shining, that Miss Tox was
charmed with him. The more Miss Tox drew him out, the finer he came - like
wire. There never was a better or more promising youth - a more
affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man - than
Rob drew out, that night.
'I am quite glad,' said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, 'to know
you. I hope you'll consider me your friend, and that you'll come and see me
as often as you like. Do you keep a money-box?'
'Yes, Ma'am,' returned Rob; 'I'm saving up, against I've got enough to
put in the Bank, Ma'am.
'Very laudable indeed,' said Miss Tox. 'I'm glad to hear it. Put this
half-crown into it, if you please.'
'Oh thank you, Ma'am,' replied Rob, 'but really I couldn't think of
depriving you.'
'I commend your independent spirit,' said Miss Tox, 'but it's no
deprivation, I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it, as a
mark of my good-will. Good-night, Robin.'
'Good-night, Ma'am,' said Rob, 'and thank you!'
Who ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a pieman.
But they never taught honour at the Grinders' School, where the system that
prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. Insomuch,
that many of the friends and masters of past Grinders said, if this were
what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more
rational said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers of the
Grinders' Company were always ready for them, by picking out a few boys who
had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they
could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of
those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the Grinders'
Institution.
Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that the
year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during which his
friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet accompanying the letter
he had left for him, was now nearly expired, and Captain Cuttle began to
look at it, of an evening, with feelings of mystery and uneasiness
The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening the
parcel one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would have thought
of opening himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely brought it out, at a
certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it on the table, and sat
gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke, in silent gravity, for two
or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when he had contemplated it thus for a
pretty long while, the Captain would hitch his chair, by degrees, farther
and farther off, as if to get beyond the range of its fascination; but if
this were his design, he never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by
the parlour wall, the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in
thoughtful wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image
immediately followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or
took up an advantageous position on the whitewash.
In respect of Heart's Delight, the Captain's parental and admiration
knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr Carker, Captain Cuttle
had come to entertain doubts whether his former intervention in behalf of
that young lady and his dear boy Wal'r, had proved altogether so favourable
as he could have wished, and as he at the time believed. The Captain was
troubled with a serious misgiving that he had done more harm than good, in
short; and in his remorse and modesty he made the best atonement he could
think of, by putting himself out of the way of doing any harm to anyone,
and, as it were, throwing himself overboard for a dangerous person.
Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never went
near Mr Dombey's house, or reported himself in any way to Florence or Miss
Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the occasion of his next
visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he thanked him for his
company, but had cut himself adrift from all such acquaintance, as he didn't
know what magazine he mightn't blow up, without meaning of it. In this
self-imposed retirement, the Captain passed whole days and weeks without
interchanging a word with anyone but Rob the Grinder, whom he esteemed as a
pattern of disinterested attachment and fidelity. In this retirement, the
Captain, gazing at the packet of an evening, would sit smoking, and thinking
of Florence and poor Walter, until they both seemed to his homely fancy to
be dead, and to have passed away into eternal youth, the beautiful and
innocent children of his first remembrance.
The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own
improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man was
generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for one hour,
every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that all books were
true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable facts. On Sunday
nights, the Captain always read for himself, before going to bed, a certain
Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and although he was accustomed to
quote the text, without book, after his own manner, he appeared to read it
with as reverent an understanding of its heavenly spirit, as if he had got
it all by heart in Greek, and had been able to write any number of fierce
theological disquisitions on its every phrase.
Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the inspired writings, under the
admirable system of the Grinders' School, had been developed by a perpetual
bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper names of all the
tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of hard verses, especially
by way of punishment, and by the parading of him at six years old in leather
breeches, three times a Sunday, very high up, in a very hot church, with a
great organ buzzing against his drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee -
Rob the Grinder made a mighty show of being edified when the Captain ceased
to read, and generally yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress.
The latter fact being never so much as suspected by the good Captain.
Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business; took to keeping books. In
these he entered observations on the weather, and on the currents of the
waggons and other vehicles: which he observed, in that quarter, to set
westward in the morning and during the greater part of the day, and eastward
towards the evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in one week, who
'spoke him' - so the Captain entered it- on the subject of spectacles, and
who, without positively purchasing, said they would look in again, the
Captain decided that the business was improving, and made an entry in the
day-book to that effect: the wind then blowing (which he first recorded)
pretty fresh, west and by north; having changed in the night.
One of the Captain's chief difficulties was Mr Toots, who called
frequently, and who without saying much seemed to have an idea that the
little back parlour was an eligible room to chuckle in, as he would sit and
avail himself of its accommodations in that regard by the half-hour
together, without at all advancing in intimacy with the Captain. The
Captain, rendered cautious by his late experience, was unable quite to
satisfy his mind whether Mr Toots was the mild subject he appeared to be, or
was a profoundly artful and dissimulating hypocrite. His frequent reference
to Miss Dombey was suspicious; but the Captain had a secret kindness for Mr
Toots's apparent reliance on him, and forbore to decide against him for the
present; merely eyeing him, with a sagacity not to be described, whenever he
approached the subject that was nearest to his heart.
'Captain Gills,' blurted out Mr Toots, one day all at once, as his
manner was, 'do you think you could think favourably of that proposition of
mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?'
'Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,' replied the Captain, who had at
length concluded on a course of action; 'I've been turning that there,
over.'
'Captain Gills, it's very kind of you,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I'm much
obliged to you. Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would be a
charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would.'
'You see, brother,' argued the Captain slowly, 'I don't know you.
'But you never can know me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, steadfast
to his point, 'if you don't give me the pleasure of your acquaintance.
The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this remark,
and looked at Mr Toots as if he thought there was a great deal more in him
than he had expected.
'Well said, my lad,' observed the Captain, nodding his head
thoughtfully; 'and true. Now look'ee here: You've made some observations to
me, which gives me to understand as you admire a certain sweet creetur.
Hey?'
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, gesticulating violently with the hand
in which he held his hat, 'Admiration is not the word. Upon my honour, you
have no conception what my feelings are. If I could be dyed black, and made
Miss Dombey's slave, I should consider it a compliment. If, at the sacrifice
of all my property, I could get transmigrated into Miss Dombey's dog - I - I
really think I should never leave off wagging my tail. I should be so
perfectly happy, Captain Gills!'
Mr Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his
bosom with deep emotion.
'My lad,' returned the Captain, moved to compassion, 'if you're in
arnest -
'Captain Gills,' cried Mr Toots, 'I'm in such a state of mind, and am
so dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot piece of
iron, or a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax, Or anything of
that sort, I should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief to my feelings.' And
Mr Toots looked hurriedly about the room, as if for some sufficiently
painful means of accomplishing his dread purpose.
The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his face
down with his heavy hand - making his nose more mottled in the process - and
planting himself before Mr Toots, and hooking him by the lapel of his coat,
addressed him in these words, while Mr Toots looked up into his face, with
much attention and some wonder.
'If you're in arnest, you see, my lad,' said the Captain, 'you're a
object of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown of a
Briton's head, for which you'll overhaul the constitution as laid down in
Rule Britannia, and, when found, that is the charter as them garden angels
was a singing of, so many times over. Stand by! This here proposal o' you'rn
takes me a little aback. And why? Because I holds my own only, you
understand, in these here waters, and haven't got no consort, and may be
don't wish for none. Steady! You hailed me first, along of a certain young
lady, as you was chartered by. Now if you and me is to keep one another's
company at all, that there young creetur's name must never be named nor
referred to. I don't know what harm mayn't have been done by naming of it
too free, afore now, and thereby I brings up short. D'ye make me out pretty
clear, brother?'
'Well, you'll excuse me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, 'if I don't
quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I - it's a hard thing, Captain
Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really have got such a
dreadful load here!' - Mr Toots pathetically touched his shirt-front with
both hands - 'that I feel night and day, exactly as if somebody was sitting
upon me.
'Them,' said the Captain, 'is the terms I offer. If they're hard upon
you, brother, as mayhap they are, give 'em a wide berth, sheer off, and part
company cheerily!'
'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I hardly know how it is, but after
what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I - I feel that I'd
rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk about her in almost
anybody else's. Therefore, Captain Gills, if you'll give me the pleasure of
your acquaintance, I shall be very happy to accept it on your own
conditions. I wish to be honourable, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, holding
back his extended hand for a moment, 'and therefore I am obliged to say that
I can not help thinking about Miss Dombey. It's impossible for me to make a
promise not to think about her.'
'My lad,' said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr Toots was much improved
by this candid avowal, 'a man's thoughts is like the winds, and nobody can't
answer for 'em for certain, any length of time together. Is it a treaty as
to words?'
'As to words, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'I think I can bind
myself.'
Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and the
Captain with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension, bestowed his
acquaintance upon him formally. Mr Toots seemed much relieved and gladdened
by the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously during the remainder of his
visit. The Captain, for his part, was not ill pleased to occupy that
position of patronage, and was exceedingly well satisfied by his own
prudence and foresight.
But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a
surprise that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth, than
Rob the Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same table, and
bending meekly over his cup and saucer, having taken sidelong observations
of his master for some time, who was reading the newspaper with great
difficulty, but much dignity, through his glasses, broke silence by saying -
'Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn't be in want of any
pigeons, may you, Sir?'
'No, my lad,' replied the Captain.
'Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain,' said Rob.
'Ay, ay?' cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a little.
'Yes; I'm going, Captain, if you please,' said Rob.
'Going? Where are you going?' asked the Captain, looking round at him
over the glasses.
'What? didn't you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?' asked
Rob, with a sneaking smile.
The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and brought
his eyes to bear on the deserter.
'Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you'd have
known that beforehand, perhaps,' said Rob, rubbing his hands, and getting
up. 'If you could be so good as provide yourself soon, Captain, it would be
a great convenience to me. You couldn't provide yourself by to-morrow
morning, I am afraid, Captain: could you, do you think?'
'And you're a going to desert your colours, are you, my lad?' said the
Captain, after a long examination of his face.
'Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain,' cried the tender Rob,
injured and indignant in a moment, 'that he can't give lawful warning,
without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You haven't any
right to call a poor cove names, Captain. It ain't because I'm a servant and
you're a master, that you're to go and libel me. What wrong have I done?
Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is, will you?'
The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye.
'Come, Captain,' cried the injured youth, 'give my crime a name! What
have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? have I set the
house a-fire? If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and try it? But to
take away the character of a lad that's been a good servant to you, because
he can't afford to stand in his own light for your good, what a injury it
is, and what a bad return for faithful service! This is the way young coves
is spiled and drove wrong. I wonder at you, Captain, I do.'
All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and
backing carefully towards the door.
'And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?' said the Captain,
eyeing him intently.
'Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another
berth,' cried Rob, backing more and more; 'a better berth than I've got
here, and one where I don't so much as want your good word, Captain, which
is fort'nate for me, after all the dirt you've throw'd at me, because I'm
poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Yes, I have
got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving you unprovided, Captain, I'd
go to it now, sooner than I'd take them names from you, because I'm poor,
and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Why do you reproach
me for being poor, and not standing in my own light for your good, Captain?
How can you so demean yourself?'
'Look ye here, my boy,' replied the peaceful Captain. 'Don't you pay
out no more of them words.'
'Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,' retorted
the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the shop.
'I'd sooner you took my blood than my character.'
'Because,' pursued the Captain calmly, 'you have heerd, may be, of such
a thing as a rope's end.'
'Oh, have I though, Captain?' cried the taunting Grinder. 'No I
haven't. I never heerd of any such a article!'
'Well,' said the Captain, 'it's my belief as you'll know more about it
pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your signals,
my lad. You may go.'
'Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?' cried Rob, exulting in his
success. 'But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not to
take away my character again, because you send me off of your own accord.
And you're not to stop any of my wages, Captain!'
His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and
telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling and
sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the pieces one by
one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied them up separately in knots
in his pockethandkerchief; then he ascended to the roof of the house and
filled his hat and pockets with pigeons; then, came down to his bed under
the counter and made up his bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he
were cut to the heart by old associations; then he whined, 'Good-night,
Captain. I leave you without malice!' and then, going out upon the
door-step, pulled the little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and
went away down the street grinning triumphantly.
The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if
nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with the
greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand, though
he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one column and
down another all through the newspaper.
It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself quite
abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's Delight
were lost to him indeed, and now Mr Carker deceived and jeered him cruelly.
They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he had held forth many a
time on the recollections that were warm within him; he had believed in the
false Rob, and had been glad to believe in him; he had made a companion of
him as the last of the old ship's company; he had taken the command of the
little Midshipman with him at his right hand; he had meant to do his duty by
him, and had felt almost as kindly towards the boy as if they had been
shipwrecked and cast upon a desert place together. And now, that the false
Rob had brought distrust, treachery, and meanness into the very parlour,
which was a kind of sacred place, Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour
might have gone down next, and not surprised him much by its sinking, or
given him any very great concern.
Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention and
no comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing whatever about
Rob to himself, or admitted to himself that he was thinking about him, or
would recognise in the most distant manner that Rob had anything to do with
his feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe.
In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over to
Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a private
watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the shutters of the
wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then called in at the
eating-house to diminish by one half the daily rations theretofore supplied
to the Midshipman, and at the public-house to stop the traitor's beer. 'My
young man,' said the Captain, in explanation to the young lady at the bar,
'my young man having bettered himself, Miss.' Lastly, the Captain resolved
to take possession of the bed under the counter, and to turn in there o'
nights instead of upstairs, as sole guardian of the property.
From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on his
glazed hat at six o'clock in the morning, with the solitary air of Crusoe
finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his fears of a
visitation from the savage tribe, MacStinger, were somewhat cooled, as
similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used to be by the
lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the cannibals, he still
observed a regular routine of defensive operations, and never encountered a
bonnet without previous survey from his castle of retreat. In the meantime
(during which he received no call from Mr Toots, who wrote to say he was out
of town) his own voice began to have a strange sound in his ears; and he
acquired such habits of profound meditation from much polishing and stowing
away of the stock, and from much sitting behind the counter reading, or
looking out of window, that the red rim made on his forehead by the hard
glazed hat, sometimes ached again with excess of reflection.
The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle deemed it expedient to open
the packet; but as he had always designed doing this in the presence of Rob
the Grinder, who had brought it to him, and as he had an idea that it would
be regular and ship-shape to open it in the presence of somebody, he was
sadly put to it for want of a witness. In this difficulty, he hailed one day
with unusual delight the announcement in the Shipping Intelligence of the
arrival of the Cautious Clara, Captain John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage;
and to that philosopher immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining
inviolable secrecy as to his place of residence, and requesting to be
favoured with an early visit, in the evening season.
Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took some
days to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had received a
letter to this effect. But when he had grappled with the fact, and mastered
it, he promptly sent his boy with the message, 'He's a coming to-night.' Who
being instructed to deliver those words and disappear, fulfilled his mission
like a tarry spirit, charged with a mysterious warning.
The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes and
rum and water, and awaited his visitor in the back parlour. At the hour of
eight, a deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the shop-door,
succeeded by the knocking of a stick on the panel, announced to the
listening ear of Captain Cuttle, that Bunsby was alongside; whom he
instantly admitted, shaggy and loose, and with his stolid mahogany visage,
as usual, appearing to have no consciousness of anything before it, but to
be attentively observing something that was taking place in quite another
part of the world.
'Bunsby,' said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, 'what cheer, my
lad, what cheer?'
'Shipmet,' replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any sign
on the part of the Commander himself, 'hearty, hearty.'
'Bunsby!' said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his
genius, 'here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter than
di'monds - and give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines to me like
di'monds bright, for which you'll overhaul the Stanfell's Budget, and when
found make a note.' Here you are, a man as gave an opinion in this here very
place, that has come true, every letter on it,' which the Captain sincerely
believed.
'Ay, ay?' growled Bunsby.
'Every letter,' said the Captain.
'For why?' growled Bunsby, looking at his friend for the first time.
'Which way? If so, why not? Therefore.' With these oracular words - they
seemed almost to make the Captain giddy; they launched him upon such a sea
of speculation and conjecture - the sage submitted to be helped off with his
pilot-coat, and accompanied his friend into the back parlour, where his hand
presently alighted on the rum-bottle, from which he brewed a stiff glass of
grog; and presently afterwards on a pipe, which he filled, lighted, and
began to smoke.
Captain Cuttle, imitating his visitor in the matter of these
particulars, though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great Commander
was far above his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the fireside,
observing him respectfully, and as if he waited for some encouragement or
expression of curiosity on Bunsby's part which should lead him to his own
affairs. But as the mahogany philosopher gave no evidence of being sentient
of anything but warmth and tobacco, except once, when taking his pipe from
his lips to make room for his glass, he incidentally remarked with exceeding
gruffness, that his name was Jack Bunsby - a declaration that presented but
small opening for conversation - the Captain bespeaking his attention in a
short complimentary exordium, narrated the whole history of Uncle Sol's
departure, with the change it had produced in his own life and fortunes; and
concluded by placing the packet on the table.
After a long pause, Mr Bunsby nodded his head.
'Open?' said the Captain.
Bunsby nodded again.
The Captain accordingly broke the seal, and disclosed to view two
folded papers, of which he severally read the endorsements, thus: 'Last Will
and Testament of Solomon Gills.' 'Letter for Ned Cuttle.'
Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, seemed to listen for
the contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat, and read the
letter aloud.
'"My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies" - '
Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked fixedly
at the coast of Greenland.
' - "in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that if
you were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or accompany me;
and therefore I kept it secret. If you ever read this letter, Ned, I am
likely to be dead. You will easily forgive an old friend's folly then, and
will feel for the restlessness and uncertainty in which he wandered away on