ther  friends connected no
less intimately  with the fine arts.  Under  whose auspices  Mr  Toots could
hardly fail to improve apace, and under whose tuition he went to work.
     But however it came about, it came  to pass, even while these gentlemen
had the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr Toots felt, he  didn't know how,
unsettled  and uneasy. There were husks in his corn, that even Game Chickens
couldn't peck up;  gloomy  giants  in  his leisure, that even Game  Chickens
couldn't  knock down.  Nothing  seemed to  do  Mr  Toots  so  much  good  as
incessantly leaving cards at Mr Dombey's door. No taxgatherer in the British
Dominions -  that  wide-spread  territory on  which the sun never  sets, and
where the tax-gatherer never goes to bed - was more regular  and persevering
in his calls than Mr Toots.
     Mr Toots never went upstairs; and always performed the same ceremonies,
richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door.
     'Oh! Good morning!'  would  be Mr Toots's first remark to  the servant.
'For Mr Dombey,' would be Mr  Toots's next remark,  as  he handed in a card.
'For Miss Dombey,' would be his next, as he handed in another.
     Mr Toots would then turn round as  if to go away; but the man  knew him
by this time, and knew he wouldn't.
     'Oh,  I  beg your  pardon,' Mr Toots would say,  as  if  a  thought had
suddenly descended on him. 'Is the young woman at home?'
     The man would rather think she was;, but wouldn't  quite know.  Then he
would ring  a bell that rang upstairs, and would look  up the staircase, and
would say, yes, she was at home, and was coming down. Then Miss Nipper would
appear, and the man would retire.
     'Oh! How de do?' Mr Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush.
     Susan would thank him, and say she was very well.
     'How's Diogenes going on?' would be Mr Toots's second interrogation.
     Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every day.
Mr Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the opening of
a bottle of some effervescent beverage.
     'Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,' Susan would add.
     Oh, it's of no consequence,  thank'ee,' was the invariable reply  of Mr
Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast.
     Now it  is  certain that Mr Toots had  a  filmy something  in his mind,
which  led  him  to conclude that  if he  could aspire successfully  in  the
fulness of  time, to the hand of Florence, he  would be fortunate and blest.
It is certain that Mr Toots, by some remote and roundabout road, had  got to
that point, and that there he made a  stand.  His heart was wounded;  he was
touched; he was in love. He had made a desperate attempt, one night, and had
sat up all night for the purpose, to  write an acrostic  on Florence,  which
affected  him to  tears in  the conception.  But he never proceeded  in  the
execution  further  than  the  words  'For when  I  gaze,'  -  the  flow  of
imagination in which he had previously written  down the initial  letters of
the other seven lines, deserting him at that point.
     Beyond devising  that very artful and politic measure of leaving a card
for Mr Dombey daily, the  brain of Mr Toots had not worked much in reference
to the  subject that  held his feelings prisoner. But deep  consideration at
length  assured   Mr  Toots  that  an  important  step  to  gain,  was,  the
conciliation of Miss Susan Nipper, preparatory to giving her some inkling of
his state of mind.
     A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the means
to employ  in  that early  chapter  of the history, for  winning her to  his
interests. Not being able quite to make up his mind  about it,  he consulted
the Chicken  - without  taking that  gentleman  into his confidence;  merely
informing  him that a friend in Yorkshire had written to him  (Mr Toots) for
his opinion on such a question. The Chicken replying that his opinion always
was, 'Go in and win,' and further, 'When your man's before you and your work
cut out, go in  and do it,' Mr  Toots  considered this  a  figurative way of
supporting  his own view of the case,  and  heroically resolved to kiss Miss
Nipper next day.
     Upon  the next day, therefore, Mr Toots, putting into  requisition some
of the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co.  had ever  turned out, went off
to  Mr Dotnbey's upon this design.  But his heart failed him so  much  as he
approached the scene of action, that,  although  he arrived on the ground at
three o'clock in the afternoon, it was six before he knocked at the door.
     Everything happened  as usual, down to  the point where Susan  said her
young mistress was well, and Mr  Toots said it  was ofno consequence. To her
amazement, Mr Toots,  instead  of  going  off,  like a  rocket,  after  that
observation, lingered and chuckled.
     'Perhaps you'd like to walk upstairs, Sir!' said Susan.
     'Well, I think I will come in!' said Mr Toots.
     But instead of walking upstairs, the bold Toots  made an awkward plunge
at Susan  when the door was shut, and embracing that  fair  creature, kissed
her on the cheek
     'Go along with you!~ cried Susan, 'or Ill tear your eyes out.'
     'Just another!' said Mr Toots.
     'Go along with you!' exclaimed Susan, giving him a push 'Innocents like
you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!'
     Susan  was not in  any serious  strait, for she  could hardly speak for
laughing; but  Diogenes, on  the staircase,  hearing a  rustling against the
wall, and a shuffling of feet, and seeing  through the  banisters that there
was  some  contention  going on, and foreign invasion in the house, formed a
different opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in the twinkling of an eye
had Mr Toots by the leg.
     Susan screamed, laughed,  opened the street-door,  and ran  downstairs;
the bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street, with Diogenes holding
on to one leg of his pantaioons, as if  Burgess and Co. were his cooks,  and
had provided  that  dainty morsel  for his  holiday  entertainment; Diogenes
shaken  off, rolled over and over in the dust, got up' again,  whirled round
the giddy Toots and snapped at him: and all this turmoil Mr Carker, reigning
up his horse and sitting a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue
from the stately house of Mr Dombey.
     Mr  Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots,  when Diogenes  was
called in, and the door shut: and while that  gentleman, taking refuge  in a
doorway near at hand, bound up the torn  leg of his pantaloons with a costly
silk  handkerchief that had formed  part  of  his expensive  outfit for  the
advent
     'I beg your pardon,  Sir,'  said  Mr Carker, riding  up, with his  most
propitiatory smile. 'I hope you are not hurt?'
     'Oh no, thank you,' replied Mr Toots,  raising  his flushed face, 'it's
of no consequence' Mr Toots would have signified, if he could, that he liked
it very much.
     'If the dog's  teeth have entered the leg, Sir - ' began Carker, with a
display of his own'
     'No,  thank  you,'  said Mr Toots, 'it's all  quite  right.  It's  very
comfortable, thank you.'
     'I have the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey,' observed Carker.
     'Have you though?' rejoined the blushing Took
     'And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,' said Mr
Carker, taking off his hat,  'for such a misadventure, and to  wonder how it
can possibly have happened.'
     Mr  Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky chance
of making frends with a friend of Mr Dombey, that he pulls out his card-case
which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands his name and address
to Mr  Carker: who responds to that courtesy by giving him his own, and with
that they part.
     As Mr Carker picks  his way so softly past the house, looking up at the
windows, and trying to make  out the pensive face behind the curtain looking
at the children  opposite, the rough head  of  Diogenes  came  clambering up
close by it,  and the dog, regardless of all soothing, barks and growls, and
makes at him from that  height, as ifhe would  spring down and tear him limb
from limb.
     Well  spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with your
head up, your eyes flashing,  and your vexed mouth worrying itself, for want
of  him! Another,  as he picks  his  way along! You have a good scent, Di, -
cats, boy, cats!

        CHAPTER 23.
     Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious

     Florence lived alone in the great  dreary house, and day succeeded day,
and still she lived  alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with  a
vacant  stare,  as if  they had a Gorgon-like  mind to stare  her youth  and
beauty into stone.
     No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick
wood,  was  ever  more solitary  and  deserted  to  the fancy,  than was her
father's  mansion in its grim reality, as it stood  lowering on  the street:
always by night,  when lights were shining from neighbouring windows, a blot
upon  its scanty brightness; always by  day, a frown upon  its never-smiling
face.
     There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this
above, as  in  magic  legend are usually found  on  duty  over  the  wronged
innocence imprisoned;  but  besides a glowering visage, with  its thin  lips
parted wickedly, that surveyed  all  comers  from above the archway  of  the
door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron, curling and twisting like
a petrifaction of an arbour over threshold, budding in spikes  and corkscrew
points,  and bearing, one on either side,  two  ominous  extinguishers, that
seemed  to  say,  'Who  enter  here,  leave light  behind!'  There  were  no
talismanic  characters  engraven  on the portal,  but  the house was  now so
neglected in appearance,  that boys chalked the railings and the  pavement -
particularly round the corner  where the side  wall was - and drew ghosts on
the  stable  door; and  being  sometimes driven  off  by Mr Towlinson,  made
portraits  of him, in  return, with his ears  growing  out horizontally from
under his hat. Noise ceased to be,  within the shadow of the roof. The brass
band that came into the street  once a week, in the  morning, never brayed a
note in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor little piping
organ  of weak intellect,  with  an  imbecile  party of  automaton  dancers,
waltzing in and out at folding-doors, fell off from it  with one accord, and
shunned it as a hopeless place.
     The spell upon it was more  wasting  than  the  spell  that used to set
enchanted houses sleeping  once upon a time, but left their waking freshness
unimpaired.  The  passive  desolation  of  disuse  was  everywhere  silently
manifest about it.  Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily, lost their old
folds and shapes,  and  hung like  cumbrous palls.  Hecatombs  of furniture,
still piled  and covered up, shrunk like imprisoned and forgotten  men,  and
changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim  as with the breath of years.  Patterns
of carpets  faded and  became perplexed and faint,  like the memory of those
years'  trifling incidents. Boards,  starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked
and shook. Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and
as the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete themselves.
Mildew and mould  began to lurk  in closets. Fungus trees grew in corners of
the  cellars. Dust  accumulated, nobody knew whence nor how; spiders, moths,
and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory blackbeetle  now  and then
was found immovable upon  the stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering  how
he  got there.  Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the  night time, through
dark galleries they mined behind the panelling.
     The dreary magnificence  of the  state  rooms,  seen imperfectly by the
doubtful light  admitted  through closed shutters, would  have answered well
enough for an  enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of  gilded lions,
stealthily  put out from beneath  their wrappers;  the marble  lineaments of
busts on pedestals, fearfully revealing themselves through veils; the clocks
that never told the time, or, if  wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and
struck  unearthly  numbers, which are  not upon  the  dial;  the  accidental
tinklings among the pendant lustres,  more startling than  alarm-bells;  the
softened sounds and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and
a phantom crowd of others,  shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape.
But, besides, there was the great staircase,  where the lord of the place so
rarely  set his foot, and by which his little  child had gone  up to Heaven.
There  were other staircases  and  passages  where  no  one  went for  weeks
together; there  were  two closed  rooms associated with dead members of the
family, and with  whispered recollections  of them; and to all the house but
Florence, there was a gentle figure moving through  the solitude and  gloom,
that  gave  to every lifeless  thing a  touch of  present human interest and
wonder,
     For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and  day succeeded day,
and still  she lived alone,  and the cold  walls looked down upon her with a
vacant  stare,  as  if they had a  Gorgon-like mind  to stare  her youth and
beauty into stone
     The  grass  began  to grow  upon the roof,  and in  the crevices of the
basement   paving.  A  scaly   crumbling   vegetation  sprouted  round   the
window-sills.  Fragments of mortar lost  their hold upon the insides  of the
unused chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees with the smoky trunks
were  blighted  high  up,  and the withered  branches  domineered above  the
leaves,  Through the whole building  white had  turned yellow, yellow nearly
black; and since the time when  the poor  lady died,  it had slowly become a
dark gap in the long monotonous street.
     But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the story.
Her books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only real companions,
Susan Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the former, in her attendance on
the  studies  of  her  young mistress, began  to grow quite learned herself,
while the latter, softened  possibly by the same  influences, would  lay his
head upon  the window-ledge, and  placidly open and shut his eyes  upon  the
street, all through a summer morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look
with great significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking  his
way along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable recollection
of  his  supposed enemy  in  the neighbourhood, rushing to the door, whence,
after a deafening disturbance, he would come jogging back  with a ridiculous
complacency  that  belonged  to him, and lay his  jaw  upon the window-ledge
again, with the air of a dog who had done a public service.
     So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of her
innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could go down to
her father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her loving heart humbly
to  approach him, without fear of repulse. She could look upon  the  objects
that had surrounded him in his sorrow, and could nestle near his chair,  and
not dread the glance that she so well remembered. She could  render him such
little tokens of  her  duty and  service' as putting everything in order for
him with her own hands, binding little nosegays for table, changing them  as
one by one they withered  and he did  not come back, preparing something for
him  every' day,  and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual
seat. To-day, it  was a little painted  stand  for his  watch; tomorrow  she
would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute  some  other trifle of her
making not so likely to attract his eye. Waking in the  night, perhaps,  she
would tremble  at the thought of his coming home and  angrily  rejecting it,
and would hurry  down with  slippered feet  and  quickly beating heart,  and
bring it away.  At  another time, she would only lay her face upon his desk,
and leave a kiss there, and a tear.
     Still no  one knew  of this. Unless the household found it out when she
was not there - and they all held Mr Dombey's rooms  in awe - it was as deep
a secret in her breast as what had gone before it. Florence stole into those
rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and at times when meals were served
downstairs. And although they were in every nook the better and the brighter
for her  care, she entered and passed out as quietly  as any sunbeam, opting
that she left her light behind.
     Shadowy company attended Florence  up and down the  echoing house,  and
sat with  her  in  the dismantled  rooms. As if her life  were an  enchanted
vision,  there arose out of  her solitude ministering thoughts, that made it
fanciful  and unreal. She imagined so often what her life would have been if
her  father  could  have loved  her and she had been a favourite child, that
sometimes,  for the moment, she almost believed it was so, and, borne on  by
the current of that pensive fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched
her  brother  in  his grave together;  how they had  freely shared his heart
between  them; how they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they
often spoke about him yet;  and her kind father, looking at her gently, told
her  of their  common hope and trust in God. At other times  she pictured to
herself her  mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling  on her neck,
and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her soul! And oh the
desolation of the solitary  house again,  with evening coming on, and no one
there!
     But there was one thought, scarcely shaped  out to herself, yet fervent
and strong within her, that upheld  Florence when  she strove and filled her
true young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of purpose. Into her mind,
as  'into  all others contending with  the great affliction  of  our  mortal
nature,  there had stolen solemn wonderings  and  hopes,  arising in the dim
world  beyond  the  present  life,  and  murmuring,  like  faint  music,  of
recognition in the far-off land between her brother and her mother:  of some
present  consciousness in both  of her: some love and commiseration for her:
and some knowledge  of  her as she went her  way upon  the earth. It  was  a
soothing consolation to Florence to  give shelter  to  these thoughts, until
one day - it was soon after  she had  last seen her father in  his own room,
late at night  - the fancy came upon her, that, in weeping for his alienated
heart,  she  might stir the  spirits of the  dead  against him' Wild,  weak,
childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble at the half-formed
thought,  it  was the  impulse  of her loving nature;  and  from  that  hour
Florence strove against the cruel wound in her breast, and tried to think of
him whose hand had made it, only with hope.
     Her father did not know - she held to it from  that time - how much she
loved him. She was very young, and had no  mother, and had never learned, by
some fault  or  misfortune,  how to  express to him  that she loved him. She
would  be patient, and would try to gain that art  in time, and win him to a
better knowledge of his only child.
     This became the  purpose of her life. The  morning  sun shone down upon
the faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within  the bosom
of  its solitary mistress,  Through all the duties  of the day, it  animated
her; for Florence  hoped  that the  more she knew, and the more accomplished
she became,  the more glad he would  be when  he came to know  and like her.
Sometimes  she wondered, with a swelling heart and rising tear,  whether she
was  proficient enough in anything to surprise him when  they  should become
companions. Sometimes she tried to think if there were any kind of knowledge
that would  bespeak his interest  more readily than another. Always: at  her
books, her  music,  and her  work: in her morning walks, and in  her nightly
prayers: she  had her  engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to
learn the road to a hard parent's heart!
     There  were many careless  loungers through the street,  as the  summer
evening  deepened into night,  who glanced  across the road  at  the  sombre
house, and saw the youthful figure at  the  window, such  a contrast to  it,
looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have slept the
worse if they had  known on what design she mused so steady.  The reputation
of the mansion as  a haunted  house, would not have been the gayer with some
humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its external gloom in  passing
and repassing on their daily avocations, and so named it, if they could have
read its story in  the darkening face. But Florence held her sacred purpose,
unsuspected and unaided:  and studied only  how  to bring her father  to the
understanding that she loved him,  and  made no appeal  against  him  in any
wandering thought.
     Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day,
and  still she lived alone,  and the monotonous  walls looked down upon  her
with a  stare, as  if  they had  a Gorgon-like intent to stare her youth and
beauty into stone.
     Susan Nipper  stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as  she
folded  and sealed a note  she had been  writing: and showed in her looks an
approving knowledge of its contents.
     'Better late than never, dear Miss  Floy,'  said Susan, 'and  I do say,
that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.'
     'It  is very good of  Sir Barnet  and  Lady Skettles,  Susan,' returned
Florence, with a mild correction of that  young  lady's  familiar mention of
the family in question, 'to repeat their invitation so kindly.'
     Miss  Nipper,  who  was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on  the
face of the  earth, and  who carried her partisanship into all matters great
or  small, and perpetually waged war with it against society, screwed up her
lips  and  shook  her   head,  as  a  protest  against  any  recognition  of
disinterestedness in the Skettleses, and a plea in bar that they  would have
valuable consideration for their kindness, in the company of Florence.
     'They  know  what they're about, if  ever people  did,'  murmured  Miss
Nipper, drawing in her breath 'oh! trust them Skettleses for that!'
     'I  am  not  very  anxious to go  to  Fulham, Susan, I  confess,'  said
Florence thoughtfully:  'but it  will  be  right to  go. I think it  will be
better.'
     'Much  better,' interposed  Susan,  with another  emphatic shake of her
head.
     'And so,' said Florence, 'though I would prefer to have gone when there
was no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it  seems there are
some young people staying in the house, I have thankfully said yes.'
     'For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!' returned Susan, 'Ah!
     This last ejaculation,  with which  Miss  Nipper frequently wound up  a
sentence,  at about that  epoch of time, was supposed below the level of the
hall to have a  general reference  to Mr Dombey,  and  to be expressive of a
yearning in  Miss  Nipper to favour that gentleman with a piece of her mind.
But  she  never  explained it; and it  had, in  consequence,  the  charm  of
mystery, in addition to the advantage of the sharpest expression.
     'How  long it is before we  have any news of  Walter, Susan!'  observed
Florence, after a moment's silence.
     'Long  indeed,  Miss Floy!' replied her maid.  'And Perch said, when he
came  just  now  to  see  for  letters - but what signifies  what he  says!'
exclaimed Susan, reddening and breaking off. 'Much he knows about it!'
     Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face.
     'If I hadn't,' said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some latent
anxiety  and  alarm,  and  looking   full  at  her   young  mistress,  while
endeavouring to work herself into a state of resentment with the unoffending
Mr Perch's image, 'if I hadn't more manliness than that  insipidest  of  his
sex, I'd never take pride in my hair again, but  turn  it up behind my ears,
and wear coarse caps, without a bit of border,  until death released me from
my insignificance. I may not be a Amazon, Miss Floy,  and wouldn't so demean
myself by such disfigurement, but anyways I'm not a giver up, I hope'
     'Give up! What?' cried Florence, with a face of terror.
     'Why, nothing,  Miss,' said  Susan.  'Good gracious, nothing! It's only
that  wet curl-paper of  a man, Perch,  that anyone might  almost make  away
with, with a  touch, and  really it would be a blessed event for all parties
if someone would take pity on him, and would have the goodness!'
     'Does he give up the ship, Susan?' inquired Florence, very pale.
     'No, Miss,' returned Susan, 'I should like to see' him make so  bold as
do it to my face! No, Miss, but he goes 'on about some bothering ginger that
Mr Walter was to send to Mrs Perch, and  shakes his dismal head, and says he
hopes it  may be coming; anyhow, he  says, it can't come now in time for the
intended occasion, but  may do  for next, which  really,' said Miss  Nipper,
with aggravated scorn,  'puts me out of patience with the man, for  though I
can bear a great deal, I am not a camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a
moment's consideration, 'if I know myself, a dromedary neither.'
     'What  else  does he say, Susan?'  inquired Florence, earnestly. 'Won't
you tell me?'
     'As if I wouldn't tell  you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!'  said
Susan. 'Why, nothing Miss,  he says that there begins to  be  a general talk
about the  ship, and that they have never had a  ship on that voyage half so
long unheard  of, and that  the Captain's wife was  at the office yesterday,
and seemed a  little put  out about it,  but anyone  could say that, we knew
nearly that before.'
     'I  must  visit  Walter's uncle,' said Florence,  hurriedly, 'before  I
leave home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there, directly,
Susan.
     Miss  Nipper having  nothing to urge against  the  proposal,  but being
perfectly acquiescent, they were soon equipped,  and  in the streets, and on
their way towards the little Midshipman.
     The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain Cuttle's, on
the day  when Brogley the broker came into possession, and when there seemed
to him to  be an execution in the very steeples, was pretty much the same as
that  in  which  Florence  now  took  her way  to  Uncle  Sol's;  with  this
difference, that Florence suffered the  added pain of  thinking that she had
been, perhaps,  the innocent occasion  of involving Walter in peril, and all
to  whom he was  dear, herself included, in an agony of  suspense.  For  the
rest,   uncertainty   and   danger  seemed   written  upon  everything.  The
weathercocks on  spires and housetops  were mysterious  with hints of stormy
wind,  and pointed,  like so many  ghostly  fingers, out to  dangerous seas,
where fragments of  great  wrecks were drifting,  perhaps, and  helpless men
were rocked upon them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters.  When
Florence came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together,
she dreaded  to  hear  them speaking of the ship,  an'd saying  it was lost.
Pictures  and prints  of vessels  fighting with the rolling waves filled her
with alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently, moved too  fast  for
her  apprehensions,  and made  her fear there  was a tempest blowing at that
moment on the ocean.
     Susan Nipper may or  may not have  been affected similarly, but  having
her attention  much engaged in  struggles with boys, whenever there was  any
press of people -  for, between that grade of  human kind and herself, there
was  some natural animosity  that  invariably broke out,  whenever they came
together  -  it  would  seem that  she had not  much leisure on the road for
intellectual operations,
     Arriving in  good time abreast of the wooden Midshipman on the opposite
side of the way, and waiting  for an  opportunity to cross the  street, they
were a little  surprised at first to see, at  the Instrument-maker's door, a
round-headed  lad, with his chubby face  addressed towards  the sky, who, as
they  looked at him, suddenly thrust into his capacious mouth two fingers of
each  hand,  and  with  the  assistance  of  that machinery  whistled,  with
astonishing shrillness, to some pigeons at  a  considerable elevation in the
air.
     'Mrs  Richards's eldest,  Miss!'  said  Susan,  'and  the worrit of Mrs
Richards's life!'
     As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of her
son and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a favourable moment
presenting   itself,   they  both  hastened   across,  without  any  further
contemplation  of Mrs Richards's  bane' That sporting character, unconscious
of their approach, again  whistled with his utmost might, and then yelled in
a rapture of excitement, 'Strays!  Whip! Strays!' which  identification  had
such an effect upon  the conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of  going
direct to some  town in the North of England, as appeared to have been their
original intention, they began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs Richards's
first born  pierced them with another whistle, and  again yelled, in a voice
that rose above the turmoil of the street, 'Strays! Who~oop! Strays!'
     From this transport, he was  abruptly recalled  to terrestrial objects,
by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop,
     'Is  this the way you show your penitence,  when Mrs Richards has  been
fretting  for  you  months  and  months?' said  Susan,  following  the poke.
'Where's Mr Gills?'
     Rob, who smoothed his  first  rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when  he
saw Florence  following,  put  his knuckles to his hair, in  honour  of  the
latter, and said to the former, that Mr Gills was out'
     Fetch him  home,' said Miss  Nipper, with authority, 'and say  that  my
young lady's here.'
     'I don't know where he's gone,' said Rob.
     'Is that your penitence?' cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.
     'Why how  can I  go and  fetch  him when I  don't  know  where to  go?'
whimpered the baited Rob. 'How can you be so unreasonable?'
     'Did Mr Gills say when he should be home?' asked Florence.
     'Yes, Miss,' replied  Rob, with another application of his  knuckles to
his  hair.  'He  said he should be home early in the  afternoon;  in about a
couple of hours from now, Miss.'
     'Is he very anxious about his nephew?' inquired Susan.
     'Yes,  Miss,' returned Rob, preferring  to address  himself to Florence
and slighting  Nipper; 'I should say he was, very much so. He ain't indoors,
Miss, not a quarter  of an hour together. He can't  settle in one place five
minutes. He  goes about, like a - just like a  stray,' said Rob, stooping to
get a glimpse of the pigeons through the window,  and checking himself, with
his fingers half-way to his mouth, on the verge of another whistle.
     'Do  you  know  a friend of  Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?' inquired
Florence, after a moment's reflection.
     'Him with  a hook, Miss?' rejoined Rob, with  an illustrative  twist of
his left hand. Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.'
     'Has he not been here since?' asked Susan.
     'No, Miss,' returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.
     'Perhaps  Walter's  Uncle has  gone there,  Susan,' observed  Florence,
turning to her.
     'To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?' interposed Rob; 'no, he's  not gone there,
Miss. Because  he  left  particular  word that  if Captain Cuttle called,  I
should tell him  how  surprised he was, not to have seen  him yesterday, and
should make him stop till he came back'
     'Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?' asked Florence.
     Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning  to a greasy parchment book
on the shop desk, read the address aloud.
     Florence again turned to her maid  and took counsel  with her in  a low
voice,  while Rob  the  round-eyed,  mindful of  his patron's secret charge,
looked on and  listened. Florence  proposed that  they kould go  to  Captain
Cuttle's  house; hear from his own lips, what  he thought  of the absence of
any  tidings ofthe Son  and  Heir; and bring  him, if they could, to comfort
Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a
hackney-coach being mentioned by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and
gave  in her  assent.  There were  some  minutes  of discussion between them
before they came to this conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close
attention  to both speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he
were appointed arbitrator of the argument.
     In time, Rob  was  despatched  for  a coach, the  visitors keeping shop
meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it,  leaving word for Uncle
Sol that they would be sure to call  again,  on their way  back.  Rob having
stared after  the  coach  until  it was as  invisible as the pigeons had now
become,  sat  down  behind the desk with a most assiduous  demeanour; and in
order that he  might forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it
on various small  scraps of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was
no  danger of these documents betraying  anything, if accidentally lost; for
long before a word was dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he
had had no part whatever in its production.
     While he  was yet  busy  with  these labours, the hackney-coach,  after
encountering  unheard-of  difficulties  from  swivel-bridges,   soft  roads,
impassable  canals,  caravans  of  casks,  settlements of  scarlet-beans and
little  wash-houses,  and many such  obstacles  abounding in  that  country,
stopped at the  corner  of Brig  Place.  Alighting here, Florence and  Susan
Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of Captain Cuttle.
     It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs MacStinger's great cleaning
days. On these occasions, Mrs MacStinger was knocked up  by the policeman at
a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely such before twelve o'clock
next night.  The chief  object  of this institution appeared to be, that Mrs
MacStinger should move all the furniture into the back garden at early dawn,
walk about the house in pattens all day,  and move the  furniture back again
after  dark.  These  ceremonies  greatly  fluttered  those doves  the  young
MacStingers,  who  were  not   only  unable  at  such  times  to  find   any
resting-place for the soles of their feet, but generally came in  for a good
deal  of  pecking  from  the  maternal  bird  during  the  progress  of  the
solemnities.
     At the moment  when Florence and  Susan Nipper  presented themselves at
Mrs MacStinger's door,  that worthy but redoubtable female was in the act of
conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three  months,  along the
passage, for  forcible  deposition  in  a  sitting  posture  on  the  street
pavement:  Alexander being  black in the face with holding his breath  after
punishment, and a cool paving-stone being usually found to act as a powerful
restorative in such cases.
     The feelings of Mrs MacStinger, as a woman  and a mother, were outraged
by  the  look of pity for Alexander  which she observed  on Florence's face.
Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those  finest emotions of our nature, in
preference to weakly gratifying her curiosity, shook and buffeted  Alexander
both  before  and during the application  of the paving-stone,  and took  no
further notice of the strangers.
     'I beg your pardon, Ma'am,' said Florence, when the child had found his
breath again, and was using it. 'Is this Captain Cuttle's house?'
     'No,' said Mrs MacStinger.
     'Not Number Nine?' asked Florence, hesitating.
     'Who said it wasn't Number Nine?' said Mrs MacStinger.
     Susan  Nipper  instantly struck  in,  and  begged to  inquire  what Mrs
MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.
     Mrs MacStinger in retort,  looked  at her  all over. 'What  do you want
with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?' said Mrs MacStinger.
     'Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,' returned Miss
Nipper.
     'Hush, Susan! If you please!' said Florence.  'Perhaps you can have the
goodness  to tell us where Captain  Cutlle lives, Ma'am  as  he  don't  live
here.'
     'Who  says he don't live  here?' retorted the implacable MacStinger. 'I
said  it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and  it ain't his  house -and forbid
it, that  it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle  don't know how to
keep a house - and don't deserve to have  a house - it's my house - and when
I let the upper floor to Cap'en  Cuttle, oh I do a thankless thing, and cast
pearls before swine!'
     Mrs  MacStinger pitched  her voice for the  upper  windows in  offering
these remarks, and cracked off each  clause sharply by  itself  as if from a
rifle possessing an infinity of  barrels. After the last shot, the Captain's
voice was heard to say, in  feeble remonstrance from his  own  room, 'Steady
below!'
     'Since  you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!' said Mrs MacStinger, with
an angry motion of her hand. On Florence  making  bold to enter, without any
more  parley,  and  on  Susan  following,  Mrs  MacStinger  recommenced  her
pedestrian  exercise in pattens,  and  Alexander  MacStinger  (still on  the
paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying to attend to  the conversation,
began to  wail  again, entertaining himself  during that dismal performance,
which  was  quite  mechanical,  with  a  general  survey  of  the  prospect,
terminating in the hackney-coach.
     The  Captain in his  own apartment was sitting  with  his hands in  his
pockets  and his legs  drawn  up under his chair, on a  very  small desolate
island,  lying  about  midway in an ocean of soap and water.  The  Captain's
windows had  been  cleaned, the walls  had been  cleaned, the stove had been
cleaned, and everything  the stove  excepted, was wet, and shining with soft
soap and  sand: the smell of which  dry-saltery impregnated  the air. In the
midst of the dreary scene,  the  Captain, cast away upon his island,  looked
round on  the waste of waters with a  rueful countenance, and seemed waiting
for some friendly bark to come that way, and take him off.
     But  when  the Captain, directing  his forlorn visage towards the door,
saw Florence  appear with her  maid, no words can describe his astonishment.
Mrs MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other sounds but  imperfectly
distinguishable, he had  looked for no rarer visitor than the potboy  or the
milkman; wherefore, when  Florence  appeared, and coming to  the confines of
the island,  put  her hand in his,  the  Captain stood  up, aghast, as if he
supposed  her,  for  the  moment, to be  some  young  member  of  the Flying
Dutchman's family.'
     Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's  first
care was to place her on  dry land, which he  happily accomplished, with one
motion  of his arm. Issuing forth,  then, upon the main, Captain Cuttle took
Miss Nipper round the  waist,  and bore  her  to  the island  also.  Captain
Cuttle, then, with great respect and admiration, raised the hand of Florence
to his lips, and standing off a little(for the island  was not  large enough
for three), beamed on her from the soap and water like a new description  of
Triton.
     'You are amazed to see us, I am sure,'said Florence, with a smile.
     The  inexpressibly gratified  Captain  kissed  his  hook in reply,  and
growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included  in the words,
'Stand by! Stand by!'
     'But I  couldn't rest,' said Florence, 'without coming to ask you  what
you think  about  dear  Walter - who is my brother now- and whether there is
anything  to fear,  and whether you will  not go and  console his poor Uncle
every day, until we have some intelligence of him?'
     At these  words Captain  Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture,  clapped
his hand  to his head, on  which the  hard glazed  hat  was not, and  looked
discomfited.
     'Have you any fears for Walter's safety?' inquired Florence, from whose
face the Captain (so  enraptured he was with  it) could not  take  his eyes:
while she,  in her turn,  looked  earnestly  at him, to  be assured  of  the
sincerity of his reply.
     'No, Heart's-delight,' said Captain Cuttle, 'I am not afeard. Wal'r  is
a lad as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll bring as
muc