and my plain wish is, that if he is living he should have what little there may be, and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you should have it, Ned. You will respect my wish, I know. God bless you for it, and for all your friendliness, besides, to SOLOMON GILLS.' Bunsby !" said the Captain, appealing to him solemnly, "what do you make of this? There you sit, a man as has had his head broke from infancy up'ards, and has got a new opinion into it at every seam as has been opened. Now, what do you make o' this ?"

If so be

"If so be," returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude, "as he's dead, my opinion is he won't come back no more. as he's alive, my opinion is he will. Do I say he will? No. Why not? Because the bearings of this obserwation lays in the application on it.”

"Bunsby!" said Captain Cuttle, who would seem to have estimated the value of his distinguished friend's opinions in proportion to the immensity of the difficulty he experienced in making anything out of them; "Bunsby," said the Captain, quite confounded by admiration, "you carry a weight of mind easy, as would swamp one of my tonnage soon. But in regard o' this here will, I don't mean to take no steps towards the property— Lord forbid!—except to keep it for a more rightful owner; and I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is living and 'll come back, strange as it is that he an't forwarded no dispatches. Now, what is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing these here papers away again, and marking outside as they was opened, such a day, in presence of John Bunsby and Ed'ard Cuttle ?"

Bunsby, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or elsewhere, to this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that great man, bringing his eye into the present for a moment, affixed his sign-manual to the cover, totally abstaining, with characteristic modesty, from the use of capital letters. Captain Cuttle, having attached his own left-handed signature, and locked up the packet in the iron safe, entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke another pipe; and doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire on the possible fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker.

And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific, that Captain Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby,

must have sunk beneath it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour.

How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a guest, could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which negligence he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that must for ever remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges against destiny. But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did the fell Mac Stinger dash into the parlor, bringing Alexander Mac Stinger in her parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to mention Juliana Mac Stinger, and the sweet child's brother, Charles Mac Stinger, popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, as Chowley) in her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a rushing air from the neighborhood of the East India Docks, that Captain Cuttle found himself in the very act of sitting looking at her, before the calm face with which he had been meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay.

But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting at the little door which opened from the parlor on the steep little range of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, headforemost, at the latter, like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only sought to hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant effort he would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate dispositions of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs-one of those dear children holding on to each claimed him as their friend, with lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs. Mac Stinger, who never entered upon any action of importance without previously inverting Alexander Mac Stinger, to bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps, and then setting him down to cool as the reader first beheld him, performed that solemn rite, as if on this occasion it were a sacrifice to the Furies; and having deposited the victim on the floor, made at the Captain with a strength of purpose that appeared to threaten scratches to the interposing Bunsby.

The cries of the two elder Mac Stingers, and the wailing of young Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood, forasmuch as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy period of existence, combined to make this visitation

the more awful. But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs. Mac Stinger, its terrors were at their height.

"Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle!" said Mrs. Mac Stinger, making her chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of her sex, might be described as her fist. “Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Ca'pen Cuttle, do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in the herth!"

The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered, "Stand by !"

"Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof, Cap'en Cuttle, I was!" cried Mrs. Mac Stinger. "To think of the benefits I've showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children up to love and honor him as if he was a father to 'em, when there an't a 'ousekeeper, no nor a lodger in our street, don't know that I lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings and his muzzlings "-Mrs. Mac Stinger used the last word for the joint sake of alliteration and aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea-" and when they cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an industrious woman, up early and late for the good of her young family, and keeping her poor place so clean that an individual. might have ate his dinner, yes, and his tea too, if he was disposed, off any one of the floors or stairs, in spite of all his guzzlings and his muzzlings, such was the care and pains bestowed upon him!"

Mrs. Mac Stinger stopped to fetch her breath; and her face flushed with triumph in this second happy introduction of Captain Cuttle's muzzlings.

"And he runs awa-a-a-ay!" cried Mrs. Mac Stinger, with a lengthening-out of the last syllable that made the unfortunate Captain regard himself as the meanest of men ; " and keeps away a twelvemonth! From a woman! Sitch is his conscience! He hasn't the courage to meet her hi-i-i-igh;" long syllable again; "but steals away like a felion. Why, if that baby of mine," said Mrs. Mac Stinger, with sudden rapidity, "was to offer to go and steal away, I'd do my duty as a mother by him, till he was covered with wales!"

The young Alexander, interpreting this into a positive promise,

to be shortly redeemed, tumbled over with fear and grief, and lay upon the floor exhibiting the soles of his shoes and making such a deafening outcry, that Mrs. Mac Stinger found it necessary to take him up in her arms, where she quieted him, ever and anon, as he broke out again, by a shake that seemed enough to loosen his teeth.

"A pretty sort of a man is Cap'en Cuttle," said Mrs. Mac Stinger, with a sharp stress on the first syllable of the Captain's name, "to take on for-and to lose sleep for—and to faint along of and to think dead forsooth-and to go up and down the blessed town like a mad woman, asking questions after! Oh, a pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha ha! He's worth all that trouble and distress of mind, and much more. That's nothing, bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap'en Cuttle," said Mrs. Mac Stinger, with severe re-action in her voice and manner, "I wish to know if you're a-coming home?"

The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing for it but to put it on, and give himself up.

"Cap'en Cuttle," repeated Mrs. Mac Stinger, in the same determined manner, "I wish to know if you're a-coming home, Sir."

The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested something to the effect of "not making so much noise about it." "Aye, aye, aye," said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. Awast, my lass, awast!"

"And who may you be, if you please!" retorted Mrs. Mac Stinger, with chaste loftiness. "Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir? My memory may be bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs. Jollson lived at Number Nine before me, and perhaps you're mistaking me for her. That is my only ways of accounting for your familiarity, Sir."

"Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!" said Bunsby.

Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man, though he saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing boldly, put his shaggy blue arm round Mrs. MacStinger, and so softened her by his magic way of doing it, and by these few words-he said no more-that she melted into tears, after looking upon him a few moments, and observed that a child might conquer her now, she was so low in her courage.