earlier, Miss, if I had work to do.'
     'Is it so hard to get?' asked Florence.
     'I find it so,' replied the man.
     Florence  glanced  to where  the girl was sitting, drawn together, with
her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said:
     'Is that your daughter?'
     He  raised  his head  quickly,  and  looking  towards  the  girl with a
brightened  face, nodded to her, and said 'Yes,' Florence looked towards her
too, and  gave her a kind salutation; the girl muttered something in return,
ungraciously and sullenly.
     'Is she in want of employment also?' said Florence.
     The man shook his head. 'No, Miss,' he said. 'I work for both,'
     'Are there only you two, then?' inquired Florence.
     'Only us two,' said the  man. 'Her mother his been dead these ten year.
Martha!' lifted up  his head again, and whistled to  her)  'won't you say  a
word to the pretty young lady?'
     The girl made  an impatient  gesture with  her cowering shoulders,  and
turned her head  another  way.  Ugly, misshapen,  peevish,  ill-conditioned,
ragged, dirty - but beloved!  Oh  yes! Florence  had seen her  father's look
towards her, and she knew whose look it had no likeness to.
     'I'm  afraid  she's  worse  this morning, my poor girl!' said  the man,
suspending  his  work,  and  contemplating  his  ill-favoured child,  with a
compassion that was the more tender for being rougher.
     'She is ill, then!' said Florence,
     The man drew  a deep sigh 'I  don't believe my Martha's  had five short
days'  good health,' he  answered, looking  at her  still, 'in  as many long
years'
     'Ay! and more than that, John,' said  a neighbour, who had come down to
help him with the boat.
     'More than that, you  say, do you?' cried the  other, pushing back  his
battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. 'Very like. It seems
a long, long time.'
     'And  the more  the time,' pursued  the  neighbour,  'the  more  you've
favoured and humoured her, John, till  she's got to be a burden to  herself,
and everybody else'
     'Not to me,' said her father, falling to his work. 'Not to me.'
     Florence  could feel -  who better? - how truly  he spoke.  She  drew a
little closer to him, and would have been glad to touch his rugged hand, and
thank him for his goodness  to the miserable object that he looked upon with
eyes so different from any other man's.
     'Who would favour my  poor girl - to call it favouring -  if I didn't?'
said the father.
     'Ay,  ay,'  cried the  neighbour.  'In reason,  John. But you! You  rob
yourself to give to her. You bind yourself hand and foot on her account. You
make your life miserable along of her. And what  does  she  care!  You don't
believe she knows it?'
     The father lifted up his head again, and  whistled to her.  Martha made
the same impatient  gesture  with her crouching shoulders, in  reply; and he
was glad and happy.
     'Only for that, Miss,' said the neighbour, with a smile, in which there
was  more of secret sympathy than he expressed; 'only to get  that, he never
lets her out of his sight!'
     'Because the day'll  come, and  has been coming a long while,' observed
the other,  bending  low over his work, 'when  to get half as much from that
unfort'nate child of mine - to  get the trembling of a finger, or the waving
of a hair - would be to raise the dead.'
     Florence softly put some money  near his hand on the old boat, and left
him.
     And now Florence  began to think, if she  were to fall ill, if she were
to fade like her dear brother, would  he then know that she had  loved  him;
would  she then grow dear to him; would he come to her bedside, when she was
weak and dim of  sight,  and take her into  his embrace, and  cancel all the
past? Would  he  so forgive her, in that changed condition, for  not  having
been able  to lay open her  childish  heart  to him, as to make  it easy  to
relate with what  emotions she had gone out of his room that night; what she
had  meant to say if she had had the courage;  and  how she had endeavoured,
afterwards, to learn the way she never knew in infancy?
     Yes, she thought if she were dying, he  would relent. She thought, that
if she  lay, serene  and  not unwilling to depart,  upon  the  bed that  was
curtained round with recollections of their darling boy, he would be touched
home, and  would say, 'Dear  Florence, live  for me, and  we will  love each
other as we might have done, and  be as happy as  we  might have  been these
many years!' She thought that if she  heard such words from him, and had her
arms clasped round him' she  could answer with a smile, 'It is  too late for
anything but this; I never could be happier, dear father!' and so leave him,
with a blessing on her lips.
     The golden water she remembered on  the wall, appeared to  Florence, in
the light of such reflections,  only as a current flowing on to rest, and to
a  region where the dear  ones, gone before, were waiting, hand in hand; and
often when  she  looked  upon the darker  river  rippling at  her  feet, she
thought with awful wonder, but  not terror, of that river which her  brother
had so often said was bearing him away.
     The father and  his sick daughter  were  yet fresh in  Florence's mind,
and,  indeed, that incident was not a week old, when Sir Barnet and his lady
going out walking  in the  lanes one afternoon, proposed to her to bear them
company. Florence readily consenting, Lady Skettles ordered out young Barnet
as a  matter of  course.  For  nothing delighted Lady  Skettles so  much, as
beholding her eldest son with Florence on his arm.
     Barnet,  to say the truth, appeared to  entertain an opposite sentiment
on the subject, and on  such occasions frequently expressed himself audibly,
though indefinitely, in reference to 'a parcel of girls.' As it was not easy
to ruffle her sweet temper, however, Florence generally reconciled the young
gentleman to his  fate after a few minutes, and  they strolled on  amicably:
Lady Skettles and  Sir  Barnet following, in a state  of perfect complacency
and high gratification.
     This  was  the order  of  procedure on  the  afternoon in question; and
Florence  had  almost  succeeded in  overruling  the present  objections  of
Skettles Junior to  his destiny, when a gentleman on  horseback  came riding
by, looked at them earnestly as he passed, drew  in his rein, wheeled round,
and came riding back again, hat in hand.
     The gentleman had looked particularly at  Florence; and when the little
party  stopped,  on  his riding back, he bowed  to her, before  saluting Sir
Barnet  and his lady. Florence had no  remembrance of  having ever seen him,
but she started involuntarily when he came near her, and drew back.
     'My horse is perfectly quiet, I assure you,' said the gentleman.
     It was  not  that, but something  in  the gentleman  himself - Florence
could not have said what - that made her recoil as if she had been stung.
     'I  have  the  honour to  address  Miss  Dombey, I  believe?'  said the
gentleman, with a most persuasive smile. On Florence  inclining her head, he
added, 'My  name  is  Carker.  I  can hardly hope  to be remembered by  Miss
Dombey, except by name. Carker.'
     Florence,  sensible of a strange inclination to shiver, though  the day
was  hot,  presented  him to  her  host and  hostess;  by whom  he was  very
graciously received.
     'I beg pardon,' said Mr Carker,  'a thousand times! But I am going down
tomorrow morning to Mr Dombey, at Leamington, and if Miss Dombey can entrust
me with any commission, need I say how very happy I shall be?'
     Sir  Barnet immediately divining  that Florence would desire to write a
letter to  her father, proposed  to return, and besought  Mr Carker to  come
home and dine in his riding gear. Mr Carker had the misfortune to be engaged
to  dinner, but if  Miss  Dombey wished to write, nothing would delight  him
more than to accompany them back, and to be her faithful slave in waiting as
long as  she pleased. As he  said this  with his widest smile, and bent down
close to her to pat his horse's neck, Florence meeting his eyes, saw, rather
than heard him say, 'There is no news of the ship!'
     Confused, frightened, shrinking from him, and not even sure that he had
said  those words, for  he  seemed  to  have  shown  them  to  her  in  some
extraordinary manner through his smile, instead  of uttering them,  Florence
faintly said that she was  obliged to him, but she  would not write; she had
nothing to say.
     'Nothing to send, Miss Dombey?' said the man of teeth.
     'Nothing,' said Florence, 'but my - but my dear love- if you please.'
     Disturbed  as Florence  was,  she raised her eyes  to  his face with an
imploring and expressive look, that plainly besought him, if he knew - which
he as plainly  did -  that  any message  between  her  and her father was an
uncommon charge,  but  that one most of all, to  spare her. Mr Carker smiled
and bowed low, and being charged by Sir Barnet  with the best compliments of
himself  and  Lady  Skettles,  took  his  leave, and  rode  away: leaving  a
favourable impression on that worthy couple. Florence was seized with such a
shudder  as  he  went,  that Sir Barnet, adopting the  popular superstition,
supposed somebody was passing over her grave. Mr Carker turning a corner, on
the instant, looked back,  and bowed, and disappeared, as if he rode  off to
the churchyard straight, to do it.

        CHAPTER 25.
     Strange News of Uncle Sol

     Captain  Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn out so early  on  the
morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shop-window, writing in the
parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob the Grinder making up
his bed below it, but that the clocks struck six as he raised himself on his
elbow, and took a survey of his little chamber. The Captain's eyes must have
done  severe duty, if he  usually opened  them as wide on  awaking as he did
that morning;  and were  but  roughly rewarded for  their  vigilance,  if he
generally rubbed them half as hard. But the occasion was no  common one, for
Rob the Grinder had certainly never stood in the doorway of Captain Cuttle's
room before, and in it he stood then, panting at the Captain, with a flushed
and touzled air of Bed  about him, that  greatly heightened both  his colour
and expression.
     'Holloa!' roared the Captain. 'What's the matter?'
     Before  Rob could stammer a  word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned out,
all in a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with his hand.
     'Steady, my lad,' said  the Captain, 'don't ye speak a  word to  me  as
yet!'
     The Captain, looking  at  his  visitor in  great consternation,  gently
shouldered  him into the next  room, after laying this  injunction upon him;
and disappearing for  a few  moments, forthwith returned  in  the blue suit.
Holding up his  hand in token of  the injunction not  yet  being  taken off,
Captain Cuttle walked up to the cupboard, and poured  himself out  a dram; a
counterpart of which he  handed to  the messenger.  The  Captain then  stood
himself up in a corner, against the wall, as if to forestall the possibility
of being knocked backwards by the communication that was to be made to  him;
and having swallowed his  liquor, with his eyes fixed on the  messenger, and
his face as pale as his face could be, requested him to 'heave ahead.'
     'Do  you  mean, tell you, Captain?'  asked  Rob, who  had  been greatly
impressed by these precautions
     'Ay!' said the Captain.
     'Well, Sir,' said Rob, 'I ain't got much to tell. But look here!'
     Rob produced a bundle of keys. The  Captain surveyed  them, remained in
his corner, and surveyed the messenger.
     'And look here!' pursued Rob.
     The boy produced a sealed packet, which Captain  Cuttle stared at as he
had stared at the keys.
     'When I  woke  this morning,  Captain,'  said  Rob, 'which  was about a
quarter after  five, I  found these on my pillow. The shop-door was unbolted
and unlocked, and Mr Gills gone.'
     'Gone!' roared the Captain.
     'Flowed, Sir,' returned Rob.
     The  Captain's voice was so  tremendous, and he came out of  his corner
with  such way on him,  that Rob retreated before him  into  another corner:
holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself from being run down.
     '"For Captain Cuttle," Sir,' cried Rob,  'is on the keys,  and  on  the
packet too. Upon my  word and honour, Captain Cuttle,  I don't know anything
more  about it.  I wish I may die if  I do! Here's a  sitiwation  for a  lad
that's just got a sitiwation,' cried the unfortunate  Grinder, screwing  his
cuff into his face: 'his master  bolted  with his place, and him blamed  for
it!'
     These lamentations had reference  to Captain Cuttle's  gaze, or  rather
glare, which was  full of vague suspicions, threatenings, and denunciations.
Taking the proffered packet from his hand, the Captain opened it and read as
follows:-
     'My dear Ned Cuttle.  Enclosed is my will!' The Captain turned it over,
with a doubtful  look -  'and Testament - Where's  the  Testament?' said the
Captain,  instantly impeaching the ill-fated Grinder.  'What  have you  done
with that, my lad?'
     'I never see it,' whimpered Rob.  'Don't keep on suspecting an innocent
lad, Captain. I never touched the Testament.'
     Captain  Cuttle shook  his head,  implying  that somebody  must be made
answerable for it; and gravely proceeded:
     'Which  don't  break  open  for  a  year,  or until you  have  decisive
intelligence  of  my  dear Walter, who is dear to you, Ned, too, I am sure.'
The  Captain  paused  and  shook  his head  in  some  emotion;  then,  as  a
re-establishment  of  his  dignity  in  this  trying  position, looked  with
exceeding sternness at the Grinder. 'If you  should never hear of me, or see
me more, Ned, remember an old friend as he will remember  you to  the last -
kindly; and at least until  the period I have mentioned  has expired, keep a
home in the old place for Walter. There are no debts, the loan from Dombey's
House is paid  off  and all my  keys I  send with this. Keep this quiet, and
make no inquiry for me; it is useless. So no more,  dear Ned, from your true
friend, Solomon  Gills.' The Captain took a long breath, and then read these
words written below:  '"The boy  Rob, well recommended, as I told  you, from
Dombey's House.  If all else should  come to the hammer,  take care, Ned, of
the little Midshipman."'
     To  convey to posterity any idea  of  the manner in  which the Captain,
after turning this letter over  and over, and  reading it  a score of times,
sat down in his chair,  and held  a court-martial on  the subject in his own
mind, would require the united genius of all the great  men, who, discarding
their own untoward days, have determined to go down to  posterity,  and have
never got there. At first the Captain was too much confounded and distressed
to think of anything but the letter itself; and even when his thoughts began
to  glance  upon the various attendant facts, they  might, perhaps,  as well
have  occupied  themselves with  their  former theme,  for  any  light  they
reflected on them. In this state of mind,  Captain Cuttle having the Grinder
before  the  court, and no  one  else,  found it  a great  relief to decide,
generally, that he was  an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly
expressed in his visage, that Rob remonstrated.
     'Oh, don't, Captain!'  cried  the Grinder.  'I wonder how you can! what
have I done to be looked at, like that?'
     'My lad,' said Captain  Cuttle, 'don't you sing out  afore you're hurt.
And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.'
     'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob.
     'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride easy.
     With  a deep sense  of  the  responsibility imposed upon  him' and  the
necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair  as became a man in
his  relations with  the parties, Captain Cuttle  resolved  to  go down  and
examine the premises, and to  keep the  Grinder with  him.  Considering that
youth as  under arrest  at present, the Captain was in some doubt whether it
might  not be expedient  to  handcuff  him, or  tie his  ankles together, or
attach  a weight to his legs; but not being clear as to the legality of such
formalities,  the Captain decided merely to hold him by the shoulder all the
way, and knock him down if he made any objection.
     However, he made none, and consequently got  to  the Instrument-maker's
house  without  being  placed under  any more  stringent restraint.  As  the
shutters were not yet taken down, the Captain's first care  was to  have the
shop opened; and  when the daylight was freely admitted, he proceeded,  with
its aid, to further investigation.
     The Captain's first  care  was to  establish himself  in a chair in the
shop,  as President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him;  and
to require Rob to lie down in his bed  under the counter, show exactly where
he discovered  the keys and packet when he awoke, how he found the door when
he went to try it, how he started off to  Brig Place - cautiously preventing
the latter imitation from being carried farther than  the threshold - and so
on to the end of the chapter. When all this had been done several times, the
Captain shook his head and seemed to think the matter had a bad look.
     Next,  the  Captain,  with some  indistinct idea  of  finding  a  body,
instituted a strict search over the whole house; groping in the cellars with
a lighted candle, thrusting his  hook behind  doors, bringing his head  into
violent contact with  beams, and covering himself  with cobwebs. Mounting up
to the  old man's bed-room, they  found that he had  not been in bed on  the
previous  night, but  had merely lain  down on the coverlet,  as was evident
from the impression yet remaining there.
     'And I think, Captain,' said Rob, looking round the room, 'that when Mr
Gills  was  going  in  and out so often, these last  few days, he was taking
little things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.'
     'Ay!' said the Captain, mysteriously. 'Why so, my lad?'
     'Why,'  returned  Rob, looking about, 'I don't see his  shaving tackle.
Nor his brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.'
     As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took particular
notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest he should appear
to  have  been in recent  use, or should  prove  to be in present possession
thereof. But Rob  had no occasion to  shave,  was not brushed, and  wore the
clothes he had on for a long time past, beyond all possibility of a mistake.
     'And what should you say,' said the Captain  - 'not committing yourself
- about his time of sheering off? Hey?'
     'Why, I think, Captain,' returned Rob,  'that he must  have gone pretty
soon after I began to snore.'
     'What  o'clock  was  that?'  said  the  Captain, prepared  to  be  very
particular about the exact time.
     'How can I tell, Captain!'  answered Rob. 'I only know that I'm a heavy
sleeper at first, and a light one  towards morning; and if Mr Gills had come
through the  shop near  daybreak,  though ever so much on tiptoe, I'm pretty
sure I should have heard him shut the door at all events.
     On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to think
that  the Instrument-maker must  have vanished of his own  accord;  to which
logical conclusion  he was assisted  by  the  letter  addressed  to himself,
which, as being undeniably in the old man's handwriting, would seem, with no
great forcing, to bear the construction, that he arranged of his own will to
go, and so went.  The  Captain had  next to consider where and  why?  and as
there  was  no  way whatsoever  that  he saw  to  the solution of  the first
difficulty, he confined his meditations to the second.
     Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had taken
of  him; unaccountably fervent at the  time, but  quite intelligible  now: a
terrible apprehension strengthened on  the Captain, that, overpowered by his
anxieties  and  regrets for Walter, he  had been driven  to commit  suicide.
Unequal to  the  wear and tear of  daily  life,  as  he  had often professed
himself to be, and shaken as he no doubt was by the uncertainty and deferred
hope  he had undergone, it seemed  no violently strained misgiving, but only
too probable. Free from debt,  and with no fear for his personal liberty, or
the seizure of his goods, what else but such a  state of madness  could have
hurried  him away alone and secretly? As to his carrying some  apparel  with
him, if he had really  done  so - and  they  were not even sure of that - he
might  have done so, the Captain  argued,  to  prevent inquiry, to  distract
attention from  his probable  fate, or to ease the  very mind  that  was now
revolving  all these  possibilities. Such, reduced into plain language,  and
condensed  within a small  compass, was  the final  result and substance  of
Captain Cuttle's  deliberations:  which took  a long time to  arrive at this
pass, and  were, like some more public  deliberations,  very discursive  and
disorderly.
     Dejected and despondent in  the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just to
release Rob from the arrest in which he had  placed him, and to enlarge him,
subject  to  a kind of  honourable  inspection  which he  still  resolved to
exercise;  and  having  hired a man, from Brogley the  Broker, to sit in the
shop during  their absence, the Captain, taking  Rob with  him, issued forth
upon a dismal quest after the mortal remains of Solomon Gills.
     Not a  station-house, or bone-house, or  work-house  in the  metropolis
escaped a visitation from  the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves, among the
shipping on  the  bank-side,  up  the  river,  down  the river, here, there,
everywhere, it went gleaming where men were thickest, like the hero's helmet
in an epic battle. For a whole  week the Captain read of all  the  found and
missing  people  in all  the newspapers and  handbills,  and went  forth  on
expeditions  at  all hours of the  day  to  identify Solomon Gills,  in poor
little ship-boys who had fallen overboard, and in  tall foreigners with dark
beards who had taken poison - 'to make  sure,' Captain Cuttle said, 'that it
wam't him.' It is a  sure thing that it never was, and that the good Captain
had no other satisfaction.
     Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these  attempts as hopeless,  and  set
himself to consider what  was to be done next. After several new perusals of
his poor friend's  letter, he considered that the  maintenance of' a home in
the old place for Walter' was  the primary duty imposed upon him. Therefore,
the Captain's decision was, that  he would keep  house  on the  premises  of
Solomon  Gills himself, and would  go into the instrument-business, and  see
what came of it.
     But as this step involved the relinquishment  of  his apartments at Mrs
MacStinger's, and  he  knew  that resolute  woman  would never  hear  of his
deserting  them, the  Captain took the  desperate determination  of  running
away.
     'Now, look  ye here, my lad,' said  the Captain  to  Rob,  when  he had
matured this notable  scheme,  'to-morrow, I  shan't  be found in  this here
roadstead  till night - not till arter  midnight p'rhaps. But you keep watch
till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and open the door.'
     'Very good, Captain,' said Rob.
     'You'll continue to be rated on  these here books,' pursued the Captain
condescendingly, 'and I don't say but what you may get promotion, if you and
me  should  pull together with  a will.  But  the moment  you hear  me knock
to-morrow night,  whatever time it is, turn-to  and show yourself smart with
the door.'
     'I'll be sure to do it, Captain,' replied Rob.
     'Because you  understand,' resumed the  Captain,  coming back again  to
enforce this charge upon his mind, 'there may be,  for anything I can say, a
chase;  and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't show yourself
smart with the door.'
     Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt  and wakeful; and
the  Captain  having  made  this  prudent  arrangement,  went  home  to  Mrs
MacStinger's for the last time.
     The sense the Captain had of its being the  last time, and of the awful
purpose hidden beneath his  blue waistcoat, inspired  him with such a mortal
dread of Mrs MacStinger, that the  sound  of that lady's foot  downstairs at
any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him into a fit of trembling. It
fell out,  too, that Mrs  MacStinger was in  a  charming temper  - mild  and
placid  as a house- lamb;  and Captain Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible
twinges, when she came up to inquire if she could cook  him nothing  for his
dinner.
     'A nice small kidney-pudding  now,  Cap'en Cuttle,'  said his landlady:
'or a sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.'
     'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain.
     'Have a  roast fowl,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'with a bit of weal stuffing
and some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle! Give yourself a little treat!'
     'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain very humbly.
     'I'm  sure you're out of sorts, and want to  be stimulated,'  said  Mrs
MacStinger. 'Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry wine?'
     'Well, Ma'am,' rejoined the Captain,  'if you'd  be  so good as take  a
glass or two, I  think I would try that. Would you do me the favour, Ma'am,'
said the  Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, 'to accept  a quarter's
rent ahead?'
     'And  why so, Cap'en Cuttle?' retorted Mrs MacStinger - sharply, as the
Captain thought.
     The Captain was frightened to dead  'If you would  Ma'am,' he said with
submission, 'it would  oblige me. I  can't keep my money very well.  It pays
itself out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.'
     'Well, Cap'en  Cuttle,' said  the  unconscious MacStinger,  rubbing her
hands,  'you  can  do as  you please.  It's not for me, with my  family,  to
refuse, no more than it is to ask'
     'And would you, Ma'am,' said  the Captain, taking down the tin canister
in which he kept his cash' from the  top shelf of the cupboard, 'be so  good
as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little family all round? If you could
make it  convenient, Ma'am, to pass the  word presently for them children to
come for'ard, in a body, I should be glad to see 'em'
     These  innocent  MacStingers  were so many  daggers  to  the  Captain's
breast, when they appeared in  a  swarm, and tore at him with  the confiding
trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander MacStinger, who had
been his favourite, was insupportable to the  Captain;  the voice of Juliana
MacStinger, who was the picture of her mother, made a coward of him.
     Captain Cuttle kept  up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably  well, and
for  an  hour or two was  very hardly used  and roughly handled by the young
MacStingers: who in their childish frolics,  did a little damage also to the
glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at  a time, as in  a nest, and drumming on
the inside of the crown  with their shoes. At length the Captain sorrowfully
dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs with the poignant remorse  and
grief of a man who was going to execution.
     In the silence of night, the Captain packed up  his heavier property in
a chest,  which he locked, intending to leave  it  there, in all probability
for  ever, but on the forlorn chance  of one day finding  a man sufficiently
bold  and desperate to come and ask  for it. Of his lighter necessaries, the
Captain made  a bundle; and disposed  his plate  about his person, ready for
flight.  At the hour of midnight, when Brig Place was buried in slumber, and
Mrs  MacStinger  was lulled in sweet oblivion, with  her infants around her,
the guilty Captain, stealing  down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the  door,
closed it softly after him, and took to his heels
     Pursued  by the image  of Mrs  MacStinger springing  out  of bed,  and,
regardless of  costume, following  and bringing him back;  pursued also by a
consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a great pace,
and  allowed no  grass  to  grow  under his feet, between Brig Place and the
Instrument-maker's door. It  opened when  he knocked  - for  Rob was  on the
watch  - and  when it was bolted and locked behind him,  Captain Cuttle felt
comparatively safe.
     'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!'
     'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob.
     'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after  changing colour, and listening to
a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my  lad; if any lady, except
either of them two as you  see t'other day,  ever comes and  asks for Cap'en
Cuttle, be sure  to report no person  of that name known, nor never heard of
here; observe them orders, will you?'
     'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.
     'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd read
in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to  Australia,  emigrating,
along with a whole  ship's  complement  of people as had all  swore never to
come back no more.
     Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions;  and Captain Cuttle
promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him, yawning,
to  his bed  under the counter,  and went aloft  to  the  chamber of Solomon
Gills.
     What the Captain suffered next day,  whenever  a bonnet  passed, or how
often he darted out of the  shop to  elude imaginary MacStingers, and sought
safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the  fatigues attendant on
this  means of self-preservation, the Captain  curtained the  glass  door of
communication between  the shop and parlour, on the inside; fitted a key  to
it from the bunch  that had been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial
in  the  wall. The  advantage of this fortification is obvious. On  a bonnet
appearing, the Captain  instantly slipped into his  garrison, locked himself
up, and  took  a secret observation of the  enemy. Finding it a false alarm,
the Captain  instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street were
so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their appearance, that
the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and out all day long.
     Captain  Cuttle  found time,  however,  in the midst of  this fatiguing
service to inspect the stock; in  connexion with which he  had  the  general
idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much  friction could  not be  bestowed
upon  it, and  that it could  not be made too bright. He also ticketed a few
attractive-looking  articles  at  a venture,  at  prices  ranging  from  ten
shillings  to fifty  pounds, and  exposed  them in the window  to  the great
astonishment of the public.
     After  effecting these improvements, Captain  Cuttle, surrounded by the
instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at  the stars at night,
through  the skylight,  when  he  was  smoking his pipe in the  little  back
parlour before going to bed, as if  he had established a kind of property in
them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he  began to have  an interest in the
Lord  Mayor, and  the Sheriffs, and in Public  Companies; and felt bound  to
read the  quotations of the  Funds every day, though  he was  unable to make
out, on any principle of navigation, what the figures meant,  and could have
very  well  dispensed with the fractions. Florence, the  Captain  waited on,
with his strange  news of Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession  of
the Midshipman; but she was away from home. So the Captain  sat himself down
in his  altered station of  life,  with  no company but Rob the Grinder; and
losing  count of time, as  men do when great changes come upon them, thought
musingly  of  Walter,  and  of Solomon  Gills,  and  even of  Mrs MacStinger
herself, as among the things that had been.

        CHAPTER 26.
     Shadows of the Past and Future

     'Your most obedient, Sir,'  said the Major. 'Damme, Sir, a friend of my
friend Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!'
     'I  am infinitely  obliged,  Carker,'  explained  Mr Dombey, 'to  Major
Bagstock, for his company and conversation. 'Major Bagstock  has rendered me
great service, Carker.'
     Mr Carker  the Manager, hat in  hand, just  arrived at Leamington,  and
just introduced  to  the Major, showed the  Major his  whole double range of
teeth,  and  trusted he might take the liberty of thanking  him with all his
heart for having effected so  great an Improvement in Mr Dombey's  looks and
spirits'
     'By Gad, Sir,' said the  Major, in reply, 'there  are no thanks due  to
me,  for it's a give  and take affair.  A great  creature  like  our  friend
Dombey, Sir,'  said the Major, lowering  his voice,  but not lowering it  so
much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman, 'cannot help improving and
exalting  his  friends.  He  strengthens  and invigorates  a  man, Sir, does
Dombey, in his moral nature.'
     Mr Carker snapped at  the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly. The
very words he had been on the point of suggesting.
     'But when  my friend  Dombey, Sir,'  added the Major, 'talks to  you of
Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right.  He means plain
Joe, Sir - Joey B.  - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph- rough and tough Old J.,  Sir.
At your service.'
     Mr Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major, and Mr
Carker's  admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness, gleamed out
of every tooth in Mr Carker's head.
     'And now,  Sir,' said the Major,  'you and Dombey have  the devil's own
amount of business to talk over.'
     'By no means, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
     'Dombey,' said the Major, defiantly, 'I know better; a man of your mark
- the Colossus  of commerce -  is not to  be  interrupted. Your moments  are
precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval, old Joseph  will be
scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr Carker.'
     With that, the Major,  greatly  swollen as  to his face,  withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:
     'I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?'
     Mr  Dombey  in some  embarrassment, and  not  without  a  glance at the
courteous keeper of his  business confidence, entrusted the  Major  with his
compliments.
     'By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major, 'you must  make it something warmer
than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.'
     'Regards then, if you will, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.
     'Damme, Sir,'  said  the  Major,  shaking his  shoulders and his  great
cheeks jocularly: 'make it something warmer than that.'
     'What you please, then, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.
     'Our friend is  sly, Sir,  sly, Sir,  de-vilish sly,'  said  the Major,
staring  round the door at  Carker. 'So is Bagstock.'  But  stopping in  the
midst of  a chuckle, and  drawing himself up to  his  full height, the Major
solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, 'Dombey! I  envy your
feelings. God bless you!' and withdrew.
     'You  must have found the  gentleman  a great  resource,' said  Carker,
following him with his teeth.
     'Very great indeed,' said Mr Dombey.
     'He has friends here, no doubt,' pursued Carker. 'I perceive, from what
he has said, that you go into society here.  Do you know,' smiling horribly,
'I am so very glad that you go into society!'
     Mr Dombey  acknowledged  this display of  interest on  the part of  his
second in  command, by twirling his  watch-chain, and  slightly  moving  his
head.
     'You were formed for society,' said Carker. 'Of all the men I know, you
are the best adapted, by nature and by position,  for society. Do you know I
have  been frequently amazed that you should have held it at arm's length so
long!'
     'I have had my reasons, Carker.  I have  been alone, and indifferent to
it.  But you have great social  qualifications yourself,  and are  the  more
likely to have been surprised.'
     'Oh! I!' returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. 'It's quite
another  matter in the case of a man  like me.  I don't come into comparison
with you.'
     Mr  Dombey  put  his hand to his  neckcloth,  settled  his chin in  it,
coughed,  and  stood looking  at  his faithful friend  and servant for a few
moments in silence.
     'I shall have the  pleasure, Carker,'  said Mr Dombey at length: making
as if he swallowed something a little too large for  his throat: 'to present
you to my - to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable people.'
     'Ladies among them, I presume?' insinuated the smooth Manager.
     'They are all - that  is to  say, they  are both - ladies,' replied  Mr
Dombey.
     'Only two?' smiled Carker.
     'They are only two. I have confined my  visits  to their residence, and
have made no other acquaintance here.'
     'Sisters, perhaps?' quoth Carker.
     'Mother and daughter,' replied Mr Dombey.
     As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes,  and adjusted his  neckcloth  again, the
smiling  face of Mr Carker  the Manager  became in a moment, and without any
stage of  transition,  transformed  into  a most intent  and frowning  face,
scanning his closely,  and with an ugly sneer. As Mr Dombey raised his eyes,
it  changed  back, no less quickly, to its old  expression,  and  showed him
every gum of which it stood possessed.
     'You  are very kind,' said  Carker, 'I shall be delighted to know them.
Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.'
     There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr Dombey's face.
     'I took the liberty of waiting on her,' said Carker, 'to inquire if she
could charge me  with any little commission. I am  not so fortunate as to be
the bearer of any but her - but her dear love.'
     Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing itself
through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr Dombey's!
     'What business intelligence  is there?' inquired  the latter gentleman,
after  a  silence,  during  which Mr  Carker had produced some memoranda and
other papers.
     'There is very little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the  whole we  have  not
had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment to  you. At
Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she was insured, from
her keel to her masthead.'
     'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, taking a chair  near him,  'I cannot say that
young man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably
     'Nor me,' interposed the Manager.
     'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he had
never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.
     'It is  a pity you didn't  say  so, in  good time, is it not?' retorted
Carker,  coolly.  'However, I  think it's all for the best. I really,  think
it's all for the best. Did I mention that  there was something like a little
confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?'
     'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly.
     'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause, 'that
wherever  Gay is, he is much better where  he is,  than at home  here. If  I
were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of that.  I am quite
satisfied  of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and young - perhaps hardly
proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a fault. Not that that is much
though, I am sure. Will you check these balances with me?'
     Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair,  instead of bending over the papers
that  were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in the face. The
Manager,  with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to be  glancing  at his
figures, and  to await  the  leisure of  his  principal.  He showed  that he
affected  this, as if from great  delicacy, and  with a design to  spare  Mr
Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at him, was cognizant of his
intended  consideration, and felt  that but for it, this confidential Carker
would have said a great deal more, which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask
for. It was his way in  business, often. Little  by little, Mr Dombey's gaze
relaxed, and  his  attention  became diverted  to the papers before him; but
while busy with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and
looked  at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was demonstrative,
as  before,  in  his delicacy, and  impressed it on his great chief more and
more.
     While  they were  thus engaged; and under the skilful  culture  of  the
Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred in Mr
Dombey's  breast,  usurping  the place  o