Dombey and Son
been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I’m old fashioned,
and behind the time. It’s here and there, and—and, in short, it’s as
good as nowhere,” said the old man, looking in bewilderment about him.
He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding his
money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the Captain
followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might remember some
few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in the cellar. But
Solomon Gills knew better than that.
“I’m behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,” said Sol, in resigned
despair, “a long way. It’s no use my lagging on so far behind it. The
stock had better be sold—it’s worth more than this debt—and I had
better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven’t any energy left.
I don’t understand things. This had better be the end of it. Let ’em
sell the stock and take him down,” said the old man, pointing feebly to
the wooden Midshipman, “and let us both be broken up together.”
“And what d’ye mean to do with Wal”r?” said the Captain. “There, there!
Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o’ this. If I warn’t
a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till today, I hadn’t
need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the wind,” said
the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece of
consolation, “and you’re all right!”
Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against the
back parlour fire-place instead.
Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time, cogitating
profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear so heavily on
his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter was afraid to
offer any interruption to the current of his reflections. Mr Brogley,
who was averse to being any constraint upon the party, and who had an
ingenious cast of mind, went, softly whistling, among the stock;
rattling weather-glasses, shaking compasses as if they were physic,
catching up keys with loadstones, looking through telescopes,
endeavouring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes,
setting parallel rulers astride on to his nose, and amusing himself
with other philosophical transactions.
“Wal”r!” said the Captain at last. “I’ve got it.”
“Have you, Captain Cuttle?” cried Walter, with great animation.
“Come this way, my lad,” said the Captain. “The stock’s the security.
I’m another. Your governor’s the man to advance money.”
“Mr Dombey!” faltered Walter.
The Captain nodded gravely. “Look at him,” he said. “Look at Gills. If
they was to sell off these things now, he’d die of it. You know he
would. We mustn’t leave a stone unturned—and there’s a stone for you.”
“A stone!—Mr Dombey!” faltered Walter.
“You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he’s there,”
said Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. “Quick!”
Walter felt he must not dispute the command—a glance at his Uncle would
have determined him if he had felt otherwise—and disappeared to execute
it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey was not
there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.
“I tell you what, Wal”r!” said the Captain, who seemed to have prepared
himself for this contingency in his absence. “We’ll go to Brighton.
I’ll back you, my boy. I’ll back you, Wal”r. We’ll go to Brighton by
the afternoon’s coach.”
If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was awful to
think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone and
unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain Cuttle, to
which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight. But as the
Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was bent upon it,
and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be trifled with by
one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint the least
objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of Solomon Gills,
and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, and the
silver watch, to his pocket—with a view, as Walter thought, with
horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr Dombey—bore him off to
the coach-office, without a minute’s delay, and repeatedly assured him,
on the road, that he would stick by him to the last.
CHAPTER X.
Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman’s Disaster
Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across
Princess’s Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after
receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that
subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication
with Miss Tox’s maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that
Dombey, Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make
his acquaintance.
Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly
declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often
did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the
Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain
to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance,
“which,” as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, “has been
fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder brother
died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.”
It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it
befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars,
reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was suddenly
touched with affectionate reminiscences of his friend Bill Bitherstone
of Bengal, who had written to ask him, if he ever went that way, to
bestow a call upon his only son. But when the same dark servant
reported Paul at Mrs Pipchin’s, and the Major, referring to the letter
favoured by Master Bitherstone on his arrival in England—to which he
had never had the least idea of paying any attention—saw the opening
that presented itself, he was made so rabid by the gout, with which he
happened to be then laid up, that he threw a footstool at the dark
servant in return for his intelligence, and swore he would be the death
of the rascal before he had done with him: which the dark servant was
more than half disposed to believe.
At length the Major being released from his fit, went one Saturday
growling down to Brighton, with the native behind him; apostrophizing
Miss Tox all the way, and gloating over the prospect of carrying by
storm the distinguished friend to whom she attached so much mystery,
and for whom she had deserted him.
“Would you, Ma’am, would you!” said the Major, straining with
vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head.
“Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma’am? Not yet, Ma’am, not yet!
Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma’am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J. B.
knows a move or two, Ma’am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir. You’ll
find him tough, Ma’am. Tough, Sir, tough is Joseph. Tough, and
de-vilish sly!”
And very tough indeed Master Bitherstone found him, when he took that
young gentleman out for a walk. But the Major, with his complexion like
a Stilton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn’s, went roving about,
perfectly indifferent to Master Bitherstone’s amusement, and dragging
Master Bitherstone along, while he looked about him high and low, for
Mr Dombey and his children.
In good time the Major, previously instructed by Mrs Pipchin, spied out
Paul and Florence, and bore down upon them; there being a stately
gentleman (Mr Dombey, doubtless) in their company. Charging with Master
Bitherstone into the very heart of the little squadron, it fell out, of
course, that Master Bitherstone spoke to his fellow-sufferers. Upon
that the Major stopped to notice and admire them; remembered with
amazement that he had seen and spoken to them at his friend Miss Tox’s
in Princess’s Place; opined that Paul was a devilish fine fellow, and
his own little friend; inquired if he remembered Joey B. the Major; and
finally, with a sudden recollection of the conventionalities of life,
turned and apologised to Mr Dombey.
“But my little friend here, Sir,” said the Major, “makes a boy of me
again: An old soldier, Sir—Major Bagstock, at your service—is not
ashamed to confess it.” Here the Major lifted his hat. “Damme, Sir,”
cried the Major with sudden warmth, “I envy you.” Then he recollected
himself, and added, “Excuse my freedom.”
Mr Dombey begged he wouldn’t mention it.
“An old campaigner, Sir,” said the Major, “a smoke-dried, sun-burnt,
used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid of being
condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the honour of
addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?”
“I am the present unworthy representative of that name, Major,”
returned Mr Dombey.
“By G—, Sir!” said the Major, “it’s a great name. It’s a name, Sir,”
said the Major firmly, as if he defied Mr Dombey to contradict him, and
would feel it his painful duty to bully him if he did, “that is known
and honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name, Sir, that
a man is proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in Joseph
Bagstock, Sir. His Royal Highness the Duke of York observed on more
than one occasion, ‘there is no adulation in Joey. He is a plain old
soldier is Joe. He is tough to a fault is Joseph:’ but it’s a great
name, Sir. By the Lord, it’s a great name!” said the Major, solemnly.
“You are good enough to rate it higher than it deserves, perhaps,
Major,” returned Mr Dombey.
“No, Sir,” said the Major, in a severe tone. No, Mr Dombey, let us
understand each other. That is not the Bagstock vein, Sir. You don’t
know Joseph B. He is a blunt old blade is Josh. No flattery in him,
Sir. Nothing like it.”
Mr Dombey inclined his head, and said he believed him to be in earnest,
and that his high opinion was gratifying.
“My little friend here, Sir,” croaked the Major, looking as amiably as
he could, on Paul, “will certify for Joseph Bagstock that he is a
thorough-going, down-right, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and nothing
more. That boy, Sir,” said the Major in a lower tone, “will live in
history. That boy, Sir, is not a common production. Take care of him,
Mr Dombey.”
Mr Dombey seemed to intimate that he would endeavour to do so.
“Here is a boy here, Sir,” pursued the Major, confidentially, and
giving him a thrust with his cane. “Son of Bitherstone of Bengal. Bill
Bitherstone formerly of ours. That boy’s father and myself, Sir, were
sworn friends. Wherever you went, Sir, you heard of nothing but Bill
Bitherstone and Joe Bagstock. Am I blind to that boy’s defects? By no
means. He’s a fool, Sir.”
Mr Dombey glanced at the libelled Master Bitherstone, of whom he knew
at least as much as the Major did, and said, in quite a complacent
manner, “Really?”
“That is what he is, sir,” said the Major. “He’s a fool. Joe Bagstock
never minces matters. The son of my old friend Bill Bitherstone, of
Bengal, is a born fool, Sir.” Here the Major laughed till he was almost
black. “My little friend is destined for a public school, I presume, Mr
Dombey?” said the Major when he had recovered.
“I am not quite decided,” returned Mr Dombey. “I think not. He is
delicate.”
“If he’s delicate, Sir,” said the Major, “you are right. None but the
tough fellows could live through it, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put each
other to the torture there, Sir. We roasted the new fellows at a slow
fire, and hung ’em out of a three pair of stairs window, with their
heads downwards. Joseph Bagstock, Sir, was held out of the window by
the heels of his boots, for thirteen minutes by the college clock.”
The Major might have appealed to his countenance in corroboration of
this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too
long.