.
     'Stinger,'  he distinctly heard the Captain  say, up in his room, as if
that were no business of his. Therefore Walter gave two knocks.
     'Cuttle,'  he  heard  the  Captain  say  upon   that;  and  immediately
afterwards the Captain, in  his clean shirt and braces, with his neckerchief
hanging loosely round his throat like a coil of rope, and his glazed hat on,
appeared at the window, leaning out over the broad blue coat and waistcoat.
     'Wal'r!' cried the Captain, looking down upon him in amazement.
     'Ay, ay, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, 'only me'
     'What's the matter, my lad?' inquired the Captain,  with great concern.
'Gills an't been and sprung nothing again?'
     'No, no,' said Walter. 'My Uncle's all right, Captain Cuttle.'
     The Captain expressed his  gratification, and said he  would  come down
below and open the door, which he did.
     'Though you're  early, Wal'r,'  said  the  Captain,  eyeing  him  still
doubtfully, when they got upstairs:
     'Why,  the fact is,  Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, sitting down, 'I was
afraid  you  would have gone out,  and  I  want to benefit  by your friendly
counsel.'
     'So you shall,' said the Captain; 'what'll you take?'
     'I  want  to take  your  opinion,  Captain  Cuttle,'  returned  Walter,
smiling. 'That's the only thing for me.'
     'Come on then,' said the Captain. 'With a will, my lad!'
     Walter related to him what had happened; and the difficulty in which he
felt respecting his Uncle, and the  relief  it would  be to  him if  Captain
Cuttle, in his  kindness, would help him to smooth it away; Captain Cuttle's
infinite consternation and  astonishment  at the prospect  unfolded to  him,
gradually swallowing that gentleman up, until it left his face quite vacant,
and the suit of blue, the glazed hat,  and the hook,  apparently without  an
owner.
     'You see, Captain  Cuttle,' pursued Walter, 'for myself, I am young, as
Mr Dombey said, and not  to be considered. I  am to fight my way through the
world, I know; but  there  are two points I  was thinking, as  I came along,
that I should be very particular about, in respect to my Uncle. I don't mean
to say that I  deserve to be the pride and delight of his life - you believe
me, I know - but I am. Now, don't you think I am?'
     The Captain seemed to make an endeavour to  rise from the depths of his
astonishment, and get back to his  face; but  the  effort being ineffectual,
the glazed hat merely nodded with a mute, unutterable meaning.
     'If I  live and have my health,' said Walter, 'and I am not  afraid  of
that, still, when I  leave England I  can hardly hope to see my Uncle again.
He is old, Captain Cuttle; and besides, his life is a life of custom - '
     'Steady,  Wal'r!  Of  a  want of custom?' said  the  Captain,  suddenly
reappearing.
     'Too  true,'  returned Walter, shaking his head: 'but I meant a life of
habit, Captain Cuttle - that sort of custom. And if (as you very truly said,
I am sure) he would have died the sooner for  the loss of the stock, and all
those objects to which he  has been  accustomed for so many years, don't you
think he might die a little sooner for the loss of - '
     'Of his Nevy,' interposed the Captain. 'Right!'
     'Well then,' said Walter,  trying to speak gaily, 'we  must do our best
to make him believe that the separation is but  a temporary one, after  all;
but as I know better, or dread that I know better,  Captain Cuttle, and as I
have so many reasons for regarding him with affection, and duty, and honour,
I  am afraid I should make but  a very  poor  hand at that, if  I  tried  to
persuade  him of it. That's my great reason for wishing you to  break it out
to him; and that's the first point.'
     'Keep her off a  point or so!' observed the Captain, in a comtemplative
voice.
     'What did you say, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter.
     'Stand by!' returned the Captain, thoughtfully.
     Walter  paused  to   ascertain   if  the  Captain  had  any  particular
information to add to this, but as he said no more, went on.
     'Now, the second point, Captain  Cuttle. I am  sorry to say, I am not a
favourite with  Mr Dombey. I  have always tried to  do  my best, and I  have
always done it; but  he  does not like  me.  He  can't help his  likings and
dislikings, perhaps. I say nothing of  that. I only say that I am certain he
does not like me. He  does not send  me to  this  post  as  a  good  one; he
disclaims to represent  it as being better than it is; and I doubt very much
if it will ever  lead me to advancement in the House - whether it  does not,
on the contrary, dispose of me for ever,  and put me out of the way. Now, we
must say  nothing of this to my Uncle, Captain Cuttle, but  must make it out
to be as  favourable and promising  as we can; and  when I tell you  what it
really is, I only do so, that in case any means should ever arise of lending
me a  hand, so far off,  I may  have  one friend at  home who knows  my real
situation.
     'Wal'r, my boy,' replied the Captain, 'in  the Proverbs of  Solomon you
will find the following  words, "May we  never want a friend  in need, nor a
bottle to give him!" When found, make a note of.'
     Here  the Captain stretched out  his hand  to  Walter, with  an air  of
downright good faith that spoke  volumes; at the same time repeating (for he
felt proud  of the accuracy and pointed application of his quotation), 'When
found, make a note of.'
     'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, taking the immense  fist extended to him
by the  Captain in both  his  hands, which  it completely filled, next to my
Uncle  Sol, I love you. There is no one on earth in  whom I  can more safely
trust, I  am sure.  As to the mere  going away, Captain Cuttle, I don't care
for that; why should I care for that!  If I were free to seek my own fortune
-  if I were free to go as a common sailor - if I were free to venture on my
own account to the farthest end of  the  world - I would gladly go!  I would
have gladly gone, years  ago,  and taken my chance of what might come of it.
But  it was  against my Uncle's wishes, and against the  plans he had formed
for me; and  there  was  an end of that. But what I feel, Captain Cuttle, is
that  we  have been  a little mistaken  all along, and that,  so far  as any
improvement in my prospects  is concerned, I am no better off now than I was
when I first entered Dombey's House -  perhaps a little worse, for the House
may have been kindly inclined towards me then, and it certainly is not now.'
     'Turn  again, Whittington,' muttered  the disconsolate  Captain,  after
looking at Walter for some time.
     'Ay,'  replied  Walter,  laughing, 'and turn  a great many  times, too,
Captain Cuttle,  I'm afraid, before such fortune as his ever turns up again.
Not that I complain,'  he added, in his lively, animated,  energetic way. 'I
have nothing to complain of.  I am provided for. I can live. When I leave my
Uncle, I  leave him to you;  and I  can leave him to no  one better, Captain
Cuttle. I  haven't  told  you  all this because I  despair, not I;  it's  to
convince you that I  can't pick and choose in Dombey's House, and that where
I  am sent,  there I must go, and what I am offered,  that I must take. It's
better for my Uncle that I should be sent away; for Mr  Dombey is a valuable
friend to him, as he proved himself, you know when, Captain Cuttle; and I am
persuaded he  won't be less valuable when  he hasn't me there, every day, to
awaken his dislike. So hurrah for the West  Indies, Captain Cuttle! How does
that tune go that the sailors sing?
     'For the Port of Barbados, Boys!
     Cheerily!
     Leaving old England behind us, Boys!
     Cheerily!' Here the Captain roared in chorus -
     'Oh cheerily, cheerily!
     Oh cheer-i-ly!'
     The  last line reaching the quick ears of an  ardent skipper not  quite
sober, who lodged opposite, and who  instantly sprung out of  bed,  threw up
his window,  and  joined in,  across  the street, at  the top of his  voice,
produced a fine effect. When  it  was  impossible to sustain  the concluding
note any longer,  the skipper bellowed forth a terrific 'ahoy!' intended  in
part as a friendly  greeting, and in part to  show that  he  was  not at all
breathed. That done, he shut down his window, and went to bed again.
     'And now, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter,  handing him the blue coat  and
waistcoat,  and bustling very much, 'if  you'll  come and break  the news to
Uncle Sol (which  he  ought to have  known, days upon days ago,  by rights),
I'll leave you at the door, you know, and walk about until the afternoon.'
     The Captain, however, scarcely appeared to relish the commission, or to
be by any means confident of his powers of executing it. He had arranged the
future life and adventures of Walter so very differently, and so entirely to
his own satisfaction;  he had felicitated himself so often  on  the sagacity
and  foresight displayed in that arrangement,  and had found it  so complete
and perfect in all its parts; that to suffer it to go to pieces all at once,
and  even  to  assist in breaking it  up, required  a  great  effort of  his
resolution.  The Captain,  too, found it  difficult to unload his  old ideas
upon  the subject, and to take a  perfectly new  cargo  on  board, with that
rapidity  which  the  circumstances   required,  or   without  jumbling  and
confounding  the  two.  Consequently,  instead  of putting  on his  coat and
waistcoat with anything like the impetuosity that could alone have kept pace
with Walter's mood, he declined to invest himself with those garments at all
at  present; and informed Walter that on such  a serious matter, he  must be
allowed to 'bite his nails a bit'
     'It's an old  habit of mine, Wal'r,' said the Captain,  'any time these
fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then you may know
that Ned Cuttle's aground.'
     Thereupon the  Captain  put his  iron  hook between his teeth, as if it
were  a  hand; and with an air of wisdom and  profundity  that  was the very
concentration  and sublimation  of  all philosophical  reflection and  grave
inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the  subject in its various
branches.
     'There's a friend of mine,' murmured the Captain, in an  absent manner,
'but he's  at present coasting round  to Whitby, that would deliver  such an
opinion on  this  subject, or any other that  could be named,  as would give
Parliament six and  beat 'em.  Been  knocked overboard, that  man,' said the
Captain, 'twice, and none the worse for it. Was beat  in his apprenticeship,
for  three weeks (off and on), about the head with a ring-bolt.  And  yet  a
clearer-minded man don't walk.'
     Despite  of  his respect  for Captain Cuttle,  Walter  could  not  help
inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping that his
limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his difficulties until they
were quite settled.
     'If  you was  to take  and show  that man the buoy at  the Nore,'  said
Captain Cuttle in the same tone, 'and ask him his opinion of it, Wal'r, he'd
give  you an  opinion  that was no  more  like  that  buoy than your Uncle's
buttons are. There ain't a man that walks - certainly not on two legs - that
can come near him. Not near him!'
     'What's his name,  Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter, determined  to  be
interested in the Captain's friend.
     'His name's Bunsby, said the Captain. 'But  Lord, it might  be anything
for the matter of that, with such a mind as his!'
     The exact idea which the  Captain attached to this concluding  piece of
praise,  he did  not further elucidate; neither  did Walter seek to draw  it
forth. For  on his beginning to review, with the vivacity natural to himself
and  to  his  situation,  the leading  points in his own  affairs,  he  soon
discovered that the Captain had relapsed  into his  former profound state of
mind;  and  that  while he  eyed  him steadfastly  from  beneath  his  bushy
eyebrows, he evidently neither saw nor heard  him, but remained immersed  in
cogitation.
     In fact, Captain Cuttle was labouring with such great designs, that far
from being aground, he soon got  off  into  the deepest of water, and  could
find no bottom to his penetration.  By degrees it  became perfectly plain to
the Captain  that  there was some mistake here; that it was undoubtedly much
more likely  to be Walter's mistake  than his; that if there were really any
West India  scheme afoot,  it was a very different one from what Walter, who
was young and rash, supposed;  and could only be some  new device for making
his  fortune with unusual celerity. 'Or if there should  be any little hitch
between 'em,' thought the Captain, meaning between Walter and Mr Dombey, 'it
only wants a word in season  from a friend of both parties, to set  it right
and smooth,  and make all taut again.' Captain Cuttle's deduction from these
considerations was,  that as he already  enjoyed the pleasure of  knowing Mr
Dombey,  from  having spent  a very agreeable  half-hour  in  his company at
Brighton (on  the  morning  when they  borrowed the  money); and that, as  a
couple of men of the  world, who  understood  each other, and  were mutually
disposed  to  make  things  comfortable,  could easily  arrange  any  little
difficulty of this sort, and come at the real facts;  the friendly thing for
him  to do would  be, without saying anything about it to Walter at present,
just  to step up to Mr Dombey's house  - say  to the servant 'Would ye be so
good,  my  lad,  as  report Cap'en  Cuttle  here?'  -  meet  Mr  Dombey in a
confidential spirit-  hook him by the button-hole  - talk it over  - make it
all right - and come away triumphant!
     As these reflections presented themselves to the Captain's mind, and by
slow degrees assumed this shape and form, his visage cleared like a doubtful
morning when it gives  place  to a bright noon. His eyebrows, which had been
in  the highest degree portentous, smoothed  their  rugged bristling aspect,
and became serene; his eyes, which had been nearly closed in the severity of
his  mental  exercise, opened  freely;  a smile which had been at first  but
three  specks -  one  at the right-hand corner of his mouth, and one  at the
corner of each eye - gradually  overspread his whole  face, and, rippling up
into  his forehead, lifted the glazed hat: as if  that  too had been aground
with Captain Cuttle, and were now, like him, happily afloat again.
     Finally, the Captain  left off biting his nails, and said, 'Now, Wal'r,
my  boy, you may help me on with them slops.' By which the Captain meant his
coat and waistcoat.
     Walter  little  imagined  why  the  Captain  was so  particular  in the
arrangement of  his cravat, as  to  twist  the  pendent ends  into a sort of
pigtail, and pass them through a massive gold ring with a picture of a  tomb
upon  it, and  a neat iron  railing, and  a tree, in memory of some deceased
friend. Nor why the Captain pulled up his shirt-collar to the utmost  limits
allowed by the Irish linen below, and by  so doing decorated himself with  a
complete  pair of blinkers;  nor  why  he changed his  shoes, and put on  an
unparalleled  pair of  ankle-jacks,  which he  only  wore  on  extraordinary
occasions.  The  Captain  being  at  length  attired  to  his  own  complete
satisfaction,  and  having  glanced  at  himself  from  head  to  foot in  a
shaving-glass which  he  removed from a nail  for that purpose,  took up his
knotted stick, and said he was ready.
     The Captain's walk was more  complacent than  usual  when they  got out
into  the  street;  but  this  Walter  supposed to  be  the  effect  of  the
ankle-jacks, and took little heed  of. Before  they had gone very  far, they
encountered a woman selling flowers; when  the Captain stopping short, as if
struck by a happy idea, made a purchase of the largest bundle in her basket:
a  most glorious  nosegay, fan-shaped, some two feet  and a  half round, and
composed of all the jolliest-looking flowers that blow.
     Armed with this  little token which he designed  for Mr Dombey, Captain
Cuttle walked on with Walter until they reached the Instrument-maker's door,
before which they both paused.
     'You're going in?' said Walter.
     'Yes,' returned  the Captain, who felt that Walter must  be got rid  of
before he proceeded any further,  and that he had better  time his projected
visit somewhat later in the day.
     'And you won't forget anything?'
     'No,' returned the Captain.
     'I'll  go upon my walk  at once,' said Walter, 'and then I shall be out
of the way, Captain Cuttle.'
     'Take a good long 'un, my lad!' replied the Captain, calling after him.
Walter waved his hand in assent, and went his way.
     His way was  nowhere in particular; but he thought he would go out into
the fields, where  he could  reflect  upon the  unknown life before him, and
resting under some tree, ponder quietly. He knew no better fields than those
near  Hampstead, and no better means of getting at  them than by  passing Mr
Dombey's house.
     It was as stately and as dark  as ever, when  he went by and glanced up
at  its  frowning  front.  The blinds were  all pulled  down, but the  upper
windows stood  wide open, and the  pleasant air  stirring those curtains and
waving them to and fro was the only sign of animation in the whole exterior.
Walter walked softly as he passed, and was glad when he had left the house a
door or two behind.
     He looked back then; with the interest he had always felt for the place
since the  adventure of the lost child, years  ago; and looked especially at
those upper windows. While he was thus engaged, a chariot drove to the door,
and a portly gentleman  in black,  with  a heavy watch-chain,  alighted, and
went  in. When he afterwards  remembered  this  gentleman  and  his equipage
together, Walter had  no doubt  be was a physician; and then he wondered who
was ill;  but the discovery did not occur  to  him until he had walked  some
distance, thinking listlessly of other things.
     Though still, of  what  the  house had  suggested  to him;  for  Walter
pleased  hImself  with  thinking that perhaps the time might come,  when the
beautiful child who was his old  friend  and had always  been so grateful to
him  and so glad  to see him since, might interest her brother in his behalf
and influence his fortunes for the better. He liked to imagine this -  more,
at that moment, for the pleasure of imagining her  continued  remembrance of
him, than for any  worldly profit he might gain: but another and more  sober
fancy whispered  to him that if he were alive  then,  he would be beyond the
sea and forgotten; she married, rich, proud, happy. There was no more reason
why she should  remember him with any interest  in such  an altered state of
things, than any plaything she ever had. No, not so much.
     Yet Walter so idealised the pretty child whom he had found wandering in
the rough streets, and so identified her with her innocent gratitude of that
night and the simplicity  and truth  of its expression, that he  blushed for
himself as a libeller when he argued that she could ever  grow proud. On the
other  hand, his meditations were of  that fantastic  order  that it  seemed
hardly less libellous in him to imagine her grown a woman:  to think of  her
as anything but the  same artless, gentle, winning little creature, that she
had been in the days of Good  Mrs Brown. In a word, Walter found out that to
reason with himself  about Florence at all, was  to become very unreasonable
indeed; and that  he could do  no better than preserve her image in his mind
as   something  precious,  unattainable,  unchangeable,  and   indefinite  -
indefinite in all but its power of giving him  pleasure, and restraining him
like an angel's hand from anything unworthy.
     It was a long stroll in the fields that Walter took that day, listening
to the birds,  and  the Sunday bells, and the softened murmur of the town  -
breathing sweet scents; glancing sometimes  at the  dim horizon beyond which
his voyage and his place of destination lay; then looking round on the green
English grass  and  the home landscape. But he hardly  once thought, even of
going away, distinctly; and seemed to put  off reflection idly, from hour to
hour,  and  from minute to minute, while he yet went  on reflecting  all the
time.
     Walter had left the fields behind him, and was plodding homeward in the
same abstracted mood, when  he heard a  shout from a man, and then a woman's
voice calling to him loudly by name. Turning quickly in his surprise, he saw
that a hackney-coach,  going in the  contrary direction,  had  stopped at no
great distance;  that the coachman was  looking back from his box and making
signals  to him with his whip; and that a young woman inside was leaning out
of the window, and beckoning  with immense energy. Running up to this coach,
he found  that the young woman was Miss Nipper, and that  Miss Nipper was in
such a flutter as to be almost beside herself.
     'Staggs's  Gardens,  Mr Walter!' said Miss Nipper;  'if you  please, oh
do!'
     'Eh?' cried Walter; 'what is the matter?'
     'Oh, Mr Walter, Staggs's Gardens, if you please!' said Susan.
     'There!' cried  the  coachman,  appealing  to  Walter,  with a sort  of
exalting despair;  'that's the  way  the young  lady's  been  a goin' on for
up'ards  of   a  mortal  hour,  and  me  continivally  backing   out  of  no
thoroughfares, where  she would drive up.  I've  had  a  many  fares in this
coach, first and last, but never such a fare as her.'
     'Do you want to go to Staggs's Gardens, Susan?' inquired Walter.
     'Ah! She wants to go there! WHERE IS IT?' growled the coachman.
     'I don't know where it is!' exclaimed  Susan, wildly. 'Mr Walter, I was
there once myself, along with Miss Floy and our poor darling Master Paul, on
the very day  when  you found Miss  Floy in the City, for we lost her coming
home, Mrs Richards  and me, and a  mad bull, and  Mrs Richards's eldest, and
though I  went there afterwards, I can't remember  where it is, I think it's
sunk  into the ground. Oh, Mr Walter, don't desert me, Staggs's  Gardens, if
you please! Miss Floy's darling  - all  our  darlings  - little,  meek, meek
Master Paul! Oh Mr Walter!'
     'Good God!' cried Walter. 'Is he very ill?'
     'The  pretty flower!' cried  Susan,  wringing her hands,  'has took the
fancy that he'd like to see his old nurse, and I've come to bring her to his
bedside, Mrs Staggs, of Polly Toodle's Gardens, someone pray!'
     Greatly  moved  by  what  he  heard, and catching  Susan's  earnestness
immediately, Walter, now that he understood the nature of her errand, dashed
into it with  such  ardour that  the  coachman  had enough  to  do to follow
closely as  he ran before, inquiring here and there and everywhere, the  way
to Staggs's Gardens.
     There was no such place as Staggs's  Gardens. It had vanished  from the
earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces now reared
their  heads, and granite columns  of gigantic girth opened a vista  to  the
railway  world beyond. The  miserable waste ground, where the  refuse-matter
had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone; and  in its frowsy stead
were  tiers  of warehouses, crammed with rich goods and costly  merchandise.
The old by-streets now swarmed with passengers and  vehicles  of every kind:
the new streets  that had stopped disheartened  in  the mud and waggon-ruts,
formed  towns   within  themselves,   originating   wholesome  comforts  and
conveniences belonging  to  themselves, and never tried nor thought of until
they sprung into existence. Bridges that had led to nothing,  led to villas,
gardens,  churches,  healthy public walks.  The  carcasses  of  houses,  and
beginnings  of new thoroughfares, had started off upon the line  at  steam's
own speed, and shot away into the country in a monster train.'
     As to the neighbourhood which had hesitated to acknowledge the railroad
in its straggling days, that  had grown wise  and penitent, as any Christian
might  in such  a case,  and now  boasted  of its  powerful  and  prosperous
relation.  There were railway patterns in its  drapers'  shops,  and railway
journals  in  the  windows  of  its  newsmen.  There  were  railway  hotels,
office-houses, lodging-houses, boarding-houses; railway  plans, maps, views,
wrappers,  bottles,  sandwich-boxes, and  time-tables; railway hackney-coach
and  stands;  railway  omnibuses,  railway streets  and  buildings,  railway
hangers-on and parasites,  and flatterers out  of all calculation. There was
even  railway time observed in clocks, as  if the sun itself had  given  in.
Among the vanquished  was the master chimney-sweeper,  whilom incredulous at
Staggs's Gardens, who now lived in  a stuccoed house three stories high, and
gave  himself  out,  with  golden  flourishes upon  a  varnished  board,  as
contractor for the cleansing of railway chimneys by machinery.
     To  and  from  the heart  of  this great  change,  all day  and  night,
throbbing currents  rushed and  returned  incessantly like its life's blood.
Crowds of people and mountains of goods, departing and  arriving scores upon
scores  of times in every four-and-twenty hours, produced a fermentation  in
the place that was always in action. The very houses seemed disposed to pack
up  and take  trips. Wonderful Members of Parliament,  who, little more than
twenty  years before,  had  made themselves  merry  with the  wild  railroad
theories   of   engineers,   and   given   them   the   liveliest  rubs   in
cross-examination, went  down  into the  north with their  watches  in their
hands, and sent on messages before by  the electric  telegraph,  to say that
they  were  coming.  Night and day the conquering  engines  rumbled at their
distant work, or,  advancing  smoothly to  their  journey's end, and gliding
like  tame dragons into the allotted  corners grooved out to  the  inch  for
their reception, stood bubbling and trembling there, making the walls quake,
as  if  they were  dilating with the  secret  knowledge of  great powers yet
unsuspected in them, and strong purposes not yet achieved.
     But Staggs's Gardens had been cut up root and  branch. Oh woe  the  day
when  'not  a rood of  English ground' - laid out in Staggs's  Gardens -  is
secure!
     At last,  after much  fruitless  inquiry, Walter, followed by the coach
and Susan, found a  man who had once resided in that vanished land,  and who
was no  other  than the  master  sweep before  referred to, grown stout, and
knocking a double knock at his own  door. He  knowed  Toodle, he said, well.
Belonged to the Railroad, didn't he?
     'Yes' sir, yes!' cried Susan Nipper from the coach window.
     Where did he live now? hastily inquired Walter.
     He  lived in  the Company's own Buildings, second turning to the right,
down the  yard, cross over, and take the second  on the right again.  It was
number  eleven; they couldn't mistake it; but if  they did, they had only to
ask for  Toodle, Engine Fireman, and  any one would  show them which was his
house. At this unexpected stroke of success Susan Nipper dismounted from the
coach with all speed, took Walter's arm, and set off at a breathless pace on
foot; leaving the coach there to await their return.
     'Has the little  boy  been long ill, Susan?' inquired  Walter, as  they
hurried on.
     'Ailing  for  a deal  of time, but no one knew  how  much,' said Susan;
adding, with excessive sharpness, 'Oh, them Blimbers!'
     'Blimbers?' echoed Walter.
     'I couldn't  forgive  myself at such  a time as this, Mr  Walter,' said
Susan,  'and  when  there's so  much serious distress  to think about,  if I
rested hard  on anyone, especially on  them  that little darling Paul speaks
well of, but I may wish that  the  family was set to work in a stony soil to
make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front, and had the pickaxe!'
     Miss Nipper then took  breath, and went on faster  than  before,  as if
this extraordinary aspiration had relieved her. Walter, who had by this time
no  breath  of his  own to spare,  hurried  along without  asking  any  more
questions; and they soon, in their impatience, burst in at a little door and
came into a clean parlour full of children.
     'Where's Mrs  Richards?' exclaimed Susan Nipper, looking round. 'Oh Mrs
Richards, Mrs Richards, come along with me, my dear creetur!'
     'Why,  if it ain't Susan!' cried Polly, rising with her honest face and
motherly figure from among the group, in great surprIse.
     'Yes, Mrs Richards, it's me,' said Susan, 'and I wish it wasn't, though
I may not seem to flatter when I say so, but little Master Paul is very ill,
and told  his Pa today that he would like to see the face of his old  nurse,
and him and Miss  Floy hope you'll come along  with  me - and Mr Walter, Mrs
Richards - forgetting what is past, and do a kindness to the sweet dear that
is withering away.  Oh, Mrs Richards, withering away!'  Susan Nipper crying,
Polly shed  tears to see her,  and  to hear what she  had said; and all  the
children  gathered round (including  numbers of new babies);  and Mr Toodle,
who had just come  home from  Birmingham, and was eating his dinner out of a
basin, laid down his  knife and fork, and put on his wife's bonnet and shawl
for her, which were hanging up behind the door; then tapped her on the back;
and said, with more fatherly feeling than eloquence, 'Polly! cut away!'
     So they got back to the coach, long before the coachman expected  them;
and Walter, putting Susan and  Mrs Richards inside, took his seat on the box
himself that there  might be no more mistakes, and deposited them safely  in
the hall of Mr Dombey's  house - where, by the bye,  he saw a mighty nosegay
lying,  which reminded  him of the  one Captain Cuttle had purchased  in his
company  that  morning. He  would have lingered to know  more  of  the young
invalid,  or waited any length  of  time to see if he could render the least
service; but, painfully sensible that such  conduct would be looked  upon by
Mr Dombey as presumptuous and forward,  he  turned slowly, sadly, anxiously,
away.
     He had  not  gone  five  minutes' walk from the door, when a  man  came
running  after him, and begged him to  return. Walter retraced his steps  as
quickly  as  he  could,  and  entered the  gloomy  house  with  a  sorrowful
foreboding.

        CHAPTER 16.
     What the Waves were always saying

     Paul had  never  risen from his little  bed. He lay there, listening to
the  noises in the  street, quite tranquilly;  not  caring much how the time
went, but watching it and watching everything about him with observing eyes.
     When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and
quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he  knew  that  evening was
coming on, and that the  sky  was red  and beautiful. As the reflection died
away, and a gloom went creeping  up the wall, he watched it  deepen, deepen,
deepen,  into  night. Then he thought  how the long streets were dotted with
lamps,  and how  the peaceful stars were shining overhead.  His fancy  had a
strange  tendency to wander to the river,  which he knew was flowing through
the great  city; and now  he thought how black it was, and how deep it would
look, reflecting the  hosts of stars  -  and more than all, how steadily  it
rolled away to meet the sea.
     As it grew later in the  night, and footsteps  in the street  became so
rare  that  he could hear them coming,  count them as they passed, and  lose
them  in the hollow  distance, he would lie and watch the many-coloured ring
about the candle, and  wait  patiently  for day. His only  trouble  was, the
swift and  rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to  try  to stop it -  to
stem it with his childish  hands - or choke its way with sand - and when  he
saw  it coming  on,  resistless, he cried out! But a word from Florence, who
was  always at his side, restored him to himself; and  leaning his poor head
upon her breast, he told Floy of his dream, and smiled.
     When day began to  dawn again, he watched  for the  sun;  and  when its
cheerful light began  to sparkle  in  the  room, he  pictured to  himself  -
pictured! he saw -  the  high church towers rising up into the  morning sky,
the  town  reviving,  waking,  starting  into  life  once  more,  the  river
glistening as it rolled (but  rolling fast as ever), and the country  bright
with  dew. Familiar  sounds and cries came by degrees into the street below;
the servants in the house were roused and busy; faces looked in at the door,
and voices asked his attendants softly how he was.  Paul always answered for
himself, 'I am better. I am a great deal better, thank you! Tell Papa so!'
     By little and little, he got tired of the  bustle of the day, the noise
of  carriages  and carts, and people  passing and repassing; and  would fall
asleep, or be troubled  with a restless  and uneasy sense again - the  child
could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his  waking moments -
of  that rushing river. 'Why, will it never stop,  Floy?' he would sometimes
ask her. 'It is bearing me away, I think!'
     But Floy could  always  soothe and  reassure him; and it  was his daily
delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some rest.
     'You  are always watching me, Floy, let me  watch you, now!' They would
prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would recline
the  while she lay beside him: bending  forward oftentimes to kiss her,  and
whispering to those who were near that she was tired, and how she had sat up
so many nights beside him.
     Thus,  the flush of the  day, in its  heat and light,  would  gradually
decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.
     He  was  visited  by  as many  as  three grave doctors -  they used  to
assemble downstairs, and come up together -  and the room  was so quiet, and
Paul  was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody  what  they
said), that  he even knew the difference in the sound of  their watches. But
his interest centred  in Sir Parker Peps, who always took his  seat  on  the
side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say long  ago, that that  gentleman
had been with his Mama when she  clasped Florence in her arms, and died. And
he could not forget it, now. He liked him for it. He was not afraid.
     The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first night at
Doctor Blimber's  - except Florence; Florence  never changed -  and what had
been Sir Parker  Peps, was now his  father,  sitting with his head  upon his
hand. Old Mrs Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often changed to Miss Tox, or
his aunt; and Paul  was quite  content to  shut his eyes again, and see what
happened  next, without emotion. But this figure with its head upon its hand
returned so often, and remained so long,  and sat so still and solemn, never
speaking, never being  spoken to, and rarely  lifting up its face, that Paul
began to wonder languidly, if it were  real; and  in  the night-time  saw it
sitting there, with fear.
     'Floy!' he said. 'What is that?'
     'Where, dearest?'
     'There! at the bottom of the bed.'
     'There's nothing there, except Papa!'
     The  figure lifted up its  head,  and rose,  and coming to the bedside,
said:
     'My own boy! Don't you know me?'
     Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this  his father? But  the
face so altered to his thinking, thrilled  while he gazed, as if  it were in
pain; and before he could  reach out both his hands to take it between them,
and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the little bed,
and went out at the door.
     Paul looked at  Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what  she
was going to say, and stopped her with  his face  against her lips. The next
time he  observed the  figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he called to
it.
     'Don't be sorry for me, dear Papa! Indeed I am quite happy!'
     His father coming and bending down to him -  which  he did quickly, and
without first pausing by  the bedside -  Paul  held  him round the neck, and
repeated those  words  to him  several times,  and very earnestly; and  Paul
never saw him in his room  again at any time, whether it  were day or night,
but  he called out, 'Don't be  sorry for me! Indeed I am  quite happy!' This
was the beginning  of his always saying  in the morning that he was  a great
deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.
     How many times the golden water danced upon the  wall;  how many nights
the  dark, dark  river rolled towards the  sea in spite of him;  Paul  never
counted, never sought  to know. If their kindness, or his sense of it, could
have increased, they  were more kind, and he more  grateful every  day;  but
whether they were  many  days  or few, appeared of little moment now, to the
gentle boy.
     One night he had been thinking of  his  mother, and her  picture in the
drawing-room downstairs,  and thought  she  must have  loved  sweet Florence
better than his father did, to have held her in  her arms when she felt that
she was  dying  - for even  he, her brother, who had such dear love for her,
could have no greater  wish than that. The train of thought suggested to him
to inquire if he had ever seen his mother? for he could not remember whether
they had told him, yes or no, the river running very fast, and confusing his
mind.
     'Floy, did I ever see Mama?'
     'No, darling, why?'
     'Did I ever see any kind face, like Mama's,  looking at me when I was a
baby, Floy?'
     He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before him.
     'Oh yes, dear!'
     'Whose, Floy?'
     'Your old nurse's. Often.'
     'And where is my old nurse?' said Paul. 'Is she dead too?  Floy, are we
all dead, except you?'
     There was a hurry in the room, for an instant - longer, perhaps; but it
seemed no more - then all was still again; and Florence, with her face quite
colourless, but  smiling, held his  head upon her arm. Her arm trembled very
much.
     'Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!'
     'She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.'
     'Thank you, Floy!'
     Paul closed  his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he awoke,
the sun was high, and  the broad  day was clear and He lay a little, looking
at  the windows, which were open, and the curtains rustling in  the air, and
waving to and fro: then he said, 'Floy, is it tomorrow? Is she come?'
     Someone  seemed to go  in quest  of  her.  Perhaps  it  was Susan. Paul
thought he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again, that she
would soon  be back;  but he did not open  them to see. She kept  her word -
perhaps  she had never been away  -  but the next thing that  happened was a
noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke - woke mind and  body -
and sat upright in his  bed. He  saw  them now about him. There was  no grey
mist  before them, as there had  been sometimes in  the night.  He knew them
every one, and called them by their names.
     'And who is this? Is this my old nurse?' said the child, regarding with
a radiant smile, a figure coming in.
     Yes,  yes. No other  stranger would have shed  those tears at  sight of
him, and called  him her dear  boy, her  pretty boy, her  own  poor blighted
child. No other woman would have  stooped down by his  bed, and taken up his
wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to
fondle it.  No other  woman  would have so forgotten everybody there but him
and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity.
     'Floy! this  is  a  kind good face!'  said Paul. 'I  am glad to  see it
again. Don't go away, old nurse! Stay here.'
     His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew.
     'Who was  that, who said "Walter"?'  he  asked, looking round. 'Someone
said Walter. Is he here? I should like to see him very much.'
     Nobody replied directly; but his father  soon said to  Susan, 'Call him
back,  then:  let him come  up!' Alter a  short pause of expectation, during
which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse, and saw that
she had not  forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the room. His open face
and manner,  and his cheerful  eyes,  had always made him  a favourite  with
Paul; and when Paul saw him' he stretched Out his hand, and said 'Good-bye!'
     'Good-bye,  my child!'  said Mrs  Pipchin, hurrying to  his bed's head.
'Not good-bye?'
     For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with  which he
had  so often  gazed  upon  her in his