"I'm much obliged to you. Upon my word and honor, Captain Gills, it would be a charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would.”

"You see, Brother," argued the Captain slowly, "I don't know

you.

"But you never can know me, Captain Gills," replied Mr. Toots, steadfast to his point, "if you don't give me the pleasure of your acquaintance."

The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this remark, and looked at Mr. Toots as if he thought there was a great deal more in him than he had expected.

"Well said, my lad," observed the Captain, nodding his head thoughtfully; "and true. Now looke'e here: You've made some observations to me, which gives me to understand as you admire a certain sweet creetur. Hey?"

"Captain Gills," said Mr. Toots, gesticulating violently with the hand in which he held his hat, "Admiration is not the word. Upon my honor, you have no conception what my feelings are. If I could be dyed black, and made Miss Dombey's slave, I should consider it a compliment. If, at the sacrifice of all my property, I could get transmigrated into Miss Dombey's dog-I-I really think I should never leave off wagging my tail. I should be so perfectly happy, Captain Gills!"

Mr. Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his bosom with deep emotion.

My lad," returned the Captain, moved to compassion, “if you're in arnest-"

"Captain Gills," cried Mr. Toots, "I'm in such a state of mind, and am so dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot piece of iron, or a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax, or anything of that sort, I should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief to my feelings." And Mr. Toots looked hurriedly about the room, as if for some sufficiently painful means of accomplishing his dread purpose.

The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his face down with his heavy hand-making his nose more mottled in the process-and planting himself before Mr. Toots, and hooking him by the lappel of his coat, addressed him in

these words, while Mr. Toots looked up into his face, with much attention and some wonder.

"If you're in arnest, you see, my lad," said the Captain, "you're a object of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown of a Briton's head, for which you'll overhaul the constitution, as laid down in Rule Britannia, and, when found, that is the charter as them garden angels was a singing of, so many times over. Stand by! This here proposal o' you'rn takes me a little aback. And why? Because I holds my own only, you understand, in these here waters, and haven't got no consort, and may be don't wish for none. Steady! You hailed me first, along of a certain young lady, as you was chartered by. Now if you and me is to keep one another's company at all, that there young creetur's name must never be named nor referred to. I don't know what harm mayn't have been done by naming of it too free, afore now, and thereby I brings up short. D'ye make me out pretty clear, brother?"

“Well, you'll excuse me, Captain Gills," replied Mr. Toots, "if I don't quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I— it's a hard thing, Captain Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really have got such a dreadful load here!"—Mr. Toots pathetically touched his shirt-front with both hands-" that I feel night and day, exactly as if somebody was sitting upon me."

"Them," said the Captain, "is the terms I offer. If they're hard upon you, brother, as mayhap they are, give 'em a wide. berth, sheer off, and part company cheerily!"

"Captain Gills," returned Mr. Toots, "I hardly know how it is, but after what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I-I feel that I'd rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk about her in almost anybody else's. Therefore, Captain Gills, if you'll give me the pleasure of your acquaintance, I shall be very happy to accept it on your own conditions. I wish to be honorable, Captain Gills," said Mr. Toots, holding back his extended hand for a moment," and therefore I am obliged to say that I can not help thinking about Miss Dombey. It's impossible for me to make a promise not to think about her."

"My lad," said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr. Toots was much improved by this candid avowal, "a man's thoughts is like

the winds, and nobody can't answer for 'em for certain, any length of time together. Is it a treaty as to words?"

"As to words, Captain Gills," returned Mr. Toots, “I think I can bind myself."

Mr. Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and the Captain, with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension, bestowed his acquaintance upon him formally. Mr. Toots seemed much relieved and gladdened by the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously during the remainder of his visit. The Captain, for his part, was not ill pleased to occupy that position of patronage, and was exceedingly well satisfied by his own prudence and foresight.

But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a surprise that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth, than Rob the Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same table, and bending meekly over his cup and saucer, having taken sidelong observations of his master for some time, who was reading the newspaper with great difficulty, but much dignity, through his glasses, broke silence by saying

"Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn't be in want of any pigeons, may you, sir?"

"No, my lad," replied the Captain.

"Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain," said

Rob.

"Aye, aye?" cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a little.

"Yes; I'm going, Captain, if you please," said Rob.

"Going? Where are you going?" asked the Captain, looking round at him over the glasses.

"What? didn't you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?" asked Rob, with a sneaking smile.

The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and brought his eyes to bear on the deserter.

"Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you'd have known that beforehand, perhaps," said Rob, rubbing his hands, and getting up. "If you could be so good as provide yourself soon, Captain, it would be a great convenience to me.

You couldn't provide yourself by to-morrow morning, I am afraid, Captain; could you, do you think?"

"And you're a going to desert your colors are you, my lad ?" said the Captain, after a long examination of his face.

"Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain," cried the tender Rob, injured and indignant in a moment, "that he can't give lawful warning, without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You haven't any right to call a poor cove names, Captain. It an't because I'm a servant and you're a master, that you're to go and libel me. What wrong have I done? Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is, will you?”

The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye. "Come, Captain," cried the injured youth, "give my crime a name! What have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? Have I set the house a-fire? If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and try it? But to take away the character of a lad that's been a good servant to you, because he can't afford to stand in his own light for your good, what a injury it is, and what a bad return for faithful service! This is the way young coves is spiled and drove wrong. I wonder at you, Captain, I do."

All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and backing carefully towards the door.

"And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?” said the Captain, eyeing him intently.

"Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another berth," cried Rob, backing more and more; "a better berth than I've got here, and one where I don't so much as want your good word, Captain, which is fort'nate for me, after all the dirt you've throw'd at me, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving you unprovided, Captain, I'd go to it now, sooner than I'd take them names from you, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not standing in my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean yourself?"

"Look ye here, my boy," replied the peaceful Captain. "Don't you pay out no more of them words."

"Well, then, don't you pay in no more of your words, Captain,"

retorted the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the shop. "I'd sooner you took my blood than my character."

"Because," pursued the Captain calmly, "you have heerd, may be, of such a thing as a rope's end."

"Oh, have I though, Captain?" cried the taunting Grinder. "No I haven't. I never heerd of any such a article!"

"Well," said the Captain, "it's my belief as you'll know more about it pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your signals, my lad. You may go."

"Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain ?" cried Rob, exulting in his success. "But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not to take away my character again, because you send me off of your own accord. And you 're not to stop any of my wages, Captain!"

His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling and sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the pieces one by one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied them up separately in knots in his pocket-handkerchief; then he ascended to the roof of the house and filled his hat and pockets with pigeons; then came down to his bed under the counter and made up his bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart by old associations; then he whined, "Good night, Captain. I leave you without malice!" and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and went away down the street grinning triumph.

The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with the greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand, though he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one column and down another all through the newspaper.

It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself quite abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's Delight were lost to him indeed, and now Mr. Carker deceived and jeered him cruelly. They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he had held forth many a time on the