Cap'en Cuttle, that it's over. Over!" And the captain, hooking off his glazed hat, pulled his handkerchief out of the crown, wiped his grizzled head despairingly, and tossed the handkerchief in again, with the indifference of deep dejection.

"Oh! I assure you," said Mr. Toots, "really I am dreadfully sorry. Upon my word I am, though I wasn't acquainted with the party. Do you think Miss Dombey will be very much affected, Captain Gills-I mean Mr. Cuttle ?" "Why, Lord love you," returned the captain, with something of compassion for Mr. Toots's innocence, "when she warn't no higher than that, they were as fond of one another as two young doves."

"Were they, though!" said Mr. Toots, with a considerably lengthened face.

"They were made for one another," said the captain mournfully; "but what signifies that

now ?"

"Upon my word and honour," cried Mr. Toots, blurting out his words through a singular combination of awkward chuckles and emotion, "I'm even more sorry than I was before. You know, Captain Gills, I-I positively adore Miss Dombey;-I-I am perfectly sore with loving her;" the burst with which this confession forced itself out of the unhappy Mr. Toots bespoke the vehemence of his feelings; "but what would be the good of my regarding her in this manner, if I wasn't truly sorry for her feeling pain, whatever was the cause of it? Mine an't a selfish affection, you know," said Mr. Toots, in the confidence engendered by his having been a witness of the captain's tenderness. "It's the sort of thing with me, Captain Gills, that if I could be run over or—or trampled upon-or-or thrown off a very high place-or anything of that sortfor Miss Dombey's sake, it would be the most delightful thing that could happen to me."

All this Mr. Toots said in a suppressed voice, to prevent its reaching the jealous ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer emotions ; which effort of restraint, coupled with the intensity of his feelings, made him red to the tips of his ears, and caused him to present such an affecting spectacle of disinterested love to the eyes of Captain Cuttle, that the good captain patted him consolingly on the back, and bade him cheer up.

"Thankee, Captain Gills," said Mr. Toots, "it's kind of you, in the midst of your own troubles, to say so. I'm very much obliged to

you.

As I said before, I really want a friend, and should be glad to have your acquaintance. Although I am very well off," said Mr. Toots

with energy, "you can't think what a miserable beast I am. The hollow crowd, you know, when they see me with the Chicken, and characters of distinction like that, suppose me to be happy; but I'm wretched. I suffer for Miss Dombey, Captain Gills. I can't get through my meals; I have no pleasure in my tailor; I often cry when I'm alone. I assure you it'll be a satisfaction to me to come back to-morrow, or to come back fifty times."

Mr. Toots, with these words, shook the captain's hand; and disguising such traces of his agitation as could be disguised on so short a notice before the Chicken's penetrating glance, rejoined that eminent gentleman in the shop. The Chicken, who was apt to be jealous of his ascendancy, eyed Captain Cuttle with anything but favour as he took leave of Mr. Toots; but followed his patron without being otherwise demonstrative of his ill-will: leaving the captain oppressed with sorrow; and Rob the Grinder elevated with joy, on account of having had the honour of staring for nearly half an hour at the conqueror of the Nobby Shropshire One.

Long after Rob was fast asleep in his bed under the counter, the captain sat looking at the fire; and long after there was no fire to look at, the captain sat gazing on the rusty bars, with unavailing thoughts of Walter and old Sol crowding through his mind. Retirement to the stormy chamber at the top of the house brought no rest with it; and the captain rose up in the morning sorrowful and unrefreshed.

As soon as the City offices were open, the captain issued forth to the counting-house of Dombey and Son. But there was no opening of the Midshipman's windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the captain's orders, left the shutters closed, and the house was as a house of death.

It chanced that Mr. Carker was entering the office as Captain Cuttle arrived at the door. Receiving the manager's benison gravely and silently, Captain Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own room.

"Well, Captain Cuttle," said Mr. Carker, taking up his usual position before the fire-place, and keeping on his hat, "this is a bad business."

"You have received the news as was in print yesterday, sir?" said the captain.

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"Yes," said Mr. Carker, we have received it. It was accurately stated. The underwriters suffer a considerable loss. We are very sorry. No help! Such is life!"

Mr. Carker pared his nails delicately with a penknife, and smiled at the captain, who was standing by the door looking at him.

"I excessively regret poor Gay," said Carker, "and the crew. I understand there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always happens so. Many men with families too. A comfort to reflect that poor Gay had no family, Captain Cuttle!"

The captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the manager. The manager glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up the newspaper.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Cuttle?" he asked, looking off it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door.

"I wish you could set my mind at rest, sir, on something it's uneasy about," returned the captain.

66

Ay!" exclaimed the manager, "what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I must trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged."

"Lookee here, sir," said the captain, advancing a step. "Afore my friend Wal'r went on this here disastrous voyage

"Come, come, Captain Cuttle," interposed the smiling manager, "don't talk about disastrous voyages in that way. We have nothing to do with disastrous voyages here, my good fellow. You must have begun very early on your day's allowance, captain, if you don't remember that there are hazards in all voyages, whether by sea or land. You are not made uneasy by the supposition that young what's-his-name was lost in bad weather that was got up against him in these offices are you? Fie, captain! Sleep, and soda water, are the best cures for such uneasiness as that."

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"My lad," returned the captain slowly,you are a'most a lad to me, and so I don't ask your pardon for that slip of a word, if you find any pleasure in this here sport, you an't the gentleman I took you for, and if you an't the gentleman I took you for, maybe my mind has call to be uneasy. Now this is what it is, Mr. Carker. Afore that poor lad went away, according to orders, he told me that he warn't a-going away for his own good or for promotion, he knowed. It was my belief that he was wrong, and I told him so, and I come here, your head governor being absent, to ask a question or two of you in a civil way, for my own satisfaction. Them questions you answered-free. Now, it'll ease my mind to know, when all is over, as it is, and when what can't be cured must be endoored -for which, as a scholar, you'll overhaul the book it's in, and thereof make a note-to know once more, in a word, that I warn't mistaken; that I warn't back'ard in my duty when I didn't tell the old man what Wal'r told me; and that

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the wind was truly in his sail when he h'isted of it for Barbadoes Harbour. Mr. Carker," said the captain in the goodness of his nature, "when I was here last, we was very pleasant together. If I an't been altogether so pleasant myself this morning, on account of this poor lad, and if I have chafed again any observation of yours that I might have fended off, my name is Ed'ard Cuttle, and I ask your pardon."

66

Captain Cuttle," returned the manager with all possible politeness, "I must ask you to do me a favour."

"And what is it, sir ?" inquired the captain. "To have the goodness to walk off, if you please," rejoined the manager, stretching forth. his arm, "and to carry your jargon somewhere else."

Every knob in the captain's face turned white with astonishment and indignation; even the red rim on his forehead faded, like a rainbow among the gathering clouds.

"I tell you what, Captain Cuttle," said the manager, shaking his forefinger at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably smiling, "I was much too lenient with you when you came here before. You belong to an artful and audacious set of people. In my desire to save young what's-his-name from being kicked out of this place, neck and crop, my good captain, I tolerated you; but for once, and only Now, go, my friend!"

once.

The captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless.

"Go," said the good-humoured manager, gathering up his skirts, and standing astride upon the hearth-rug, "like a sensible fellow, and let us have no turning out, or any such violent measures. If Mr. Dombey were here, captain, you might be obliged to leave in a more ignominious manner, possibly. I merely say, go!"

The captain, laying his ponderous hand upon his chest, to assist himself in fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr. Carker from head to foot, and looked round the little room, as if he did not clearly understand where he was, or in what company.

"You are deep, Captain Cuttle," pursued Carker, with the easy and vivacious frankness of a man of the world who knew the world too well to be ruffled by any discovery of misdoing, when it did not immediately concern himself; "but you are not quite out of soundings, either-neither you nor your absent friend, captain. What have you done with your absent friend, hey?"

Again the captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing another deep breath, he

conjured himself to "stand by!" But in a whisper.

"You hatch nice little plots, and hold nice little councils, and make nice little appointments, and receive nice little visitors, too, captain, hey?" said Carker, bending his brows upon him, without showing his teeth any the less: "but it's a bold measure to come here afterwards. Not like your discretion! You conspirators, and hiders, and runners-away should know better than that. Will you oblige me by going?"

"My lad," gasped the captain in a choked and trembling voice, and with a curious action going on in the ponderous fist; "there's a many words I could wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where they're stowed just at present. My young friend Wal'r was drownded only last night, according to my reckoning, and it puts me out, you see. But you and me will come alongside o' one another again, my lad," said the captain, holding up his hook, "if we live."

"It will be anything but shrewd in you, my good fellow, if we do," returned the manager with the same frankness; "for you may rely, I give you fair warning, upon my detecting and exposing you. I don't pretend to be a more moral man than my neighbours, my good captain; but the confidence of this House, or of any member of this House, is not to be abused and undermined while I have eyes and ears. Good day!" said Mr. Carker, nodding his head.

Captain Cuttle, looking at him steadily (Mr. Carker looked full as steadily at the captain), went out of the office, and left him standing astride before the fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more spots upon his soul than on his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek skin.

The captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house, at the desk where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now occupied by another young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful as his on the day when they tapped the famous last bottle but one of the old madeira, in the little back-parlour. The association of ideas thus awakened did the captain a great deal of good; it softened him in the very height of his anger, and brought the tears into his eyes.

Arrived at the Wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a corner of the dark shop, the captain's indignation, strong as it was, could make no head against his grief. Passion seemed not only to do wrong and violence to the memory of the dead, but to be infected by death,

and to droop and decline beside it. All the living knaves and liars in the world were nothing to the honesty and truth of one dead friend.

The only thing the honest captain made out clearly, in this state of mind, besides the loss of Walter, was, that with him almost the whole world of Captain Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached himself sometimes, and keenly too, for having ever connived at Walter's innocent deceit, he thought at least as often of the Mr. Carker whom no sea could ever render up; and the Mr. Dombey, whom he now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall; and the "Heart's Delight," with whom he must never foregather again; and the Lovely Peg, that teak-built and trim ballad, that had gone ashore upon a rock, and split into mere planks and beams of rhyme. The captain sat in the dark shop, thinking of these things, to the entire exclusion of his own injury; and looking with as sad an eye upon the ground, as if in contemplation of their actual fragments as they floated past him.

But the captain was not unmindful, for all that, of such decent and respectful observances in memory of poor Walter as he felt within his power. Rousing himself and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the unnatural twilight was fast asleep), the captain sallied forth with his attendant at his heels, and the door-key in his pocket, and repairing to one of those convenient slopselling establishments of which there is abundant choice at the eastern end of London, purchased on the spot two suits of mourning-one for Rob the Grinder, which was immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the coalheaver; which is usually termed a sou'-wester; and which was something of a novelty in connection with the instrument business. In their several garments, which the vendor declared to be such a miracle in point of fit as nothing but a rare combination of fortuitous circumstances ever brought about, and the fashion of which was unparalleled within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, the captain and Grinder immediately arrayed themselves: presenting a spectacle fraught with wonder to all who beheld it.

In this altered form the captain received Mr. Toots. "I'm took aback, my lad, at present," said the captain, "and will only confirm that there ill news. Tell the young woman to break it gentle to the young lady, and for neither of 'em never to think of me no more 'special,