Dombey and Son
waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with my young friend
Wal”r, when—in short, when there was a little accommodation wanted.”
The Captain nodded his head in a manner that was at once comfortable,
easy, and expressive. “You remember, I daresay?”
“I think,” said Mr Carker, “I had the honour of arranging the
business.”
“To be sure!” returned the Captain. “Right again! you had. Now I’ve
took the liberty of coming here—
“Won’t you sit down?” said Mr Carker, smiling.
“Thank’ee,” returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. “A man
does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when he
sits down. Won’t you take a cheer yourself?”
“No thank you,” said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force of
winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking down
upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. “You have taken
the liberty, you were going to say—though it’s none—”
“Thank’ee kindly, my lad,” returned the Captain: “of coming here, on
account of my friend Wal”r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of science,
and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain’t what I
should altogether call a able seaman—not man of practice. Wal”r is as
trim a lad as ever stepped; but he’s a little down by the head in one
respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to put to you,”
said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a kind of
confidential growl, “in a friendly way, entirely between you and me,
and for my own private reckoning, “till your head Governor has wore
round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this.—Is everything
right and comfortable here, and is Wal”r out’ard bound with a pretty
fair wind?”
“What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?” returned Carker, gathering up
his skirts and settling himself in his position. “You are a practical
man; what do you think?”
The acuteness and the significance of the Captain’s eye as he cocked it
in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before
referred to could describe.
“Come!” said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, “what do you say? Am
I right or wrong?”
So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and incited by
Mr Carker’s smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as fair a
condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his sentiments
with the utmost elaboration.
“Right,” said Mr Carker, “I have no doubt.”
“Out’ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,” cried Captain Cuttle.
Mr Carker smiled assent.
“Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,” pursued the Captain.
Mr Carker smiled assent again.
“Ay, ay!” said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. “I know’d
how she headed, well enough; I told Wal”r so. Thank’ee, thank’ee.”
“Gay has brilliant prospects,” observed Mr Carker, stretching his mouth
wider yet: “all the world before him.”
“All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,” returned the
delighted Captain.
At the word “wife” (which he had uttered without design), the Captain
stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on the top of
the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at his always
smiling friend.
“I’d bet a gill of old Jamaica,” said the Captain, eyeing him
attentively, “that I know what you’re a smiling at.”
Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.
“It goes no farther?” said the Captain, making a poke at the door with
the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.
“Not an inch,” said Mr Carker.
“You’re thinking of a capital F perhaps?” said the Captain.
Mr Carker didn’t deny it.
“Anything about a L,” said the Captain, “or a O?”
Mr Carker still smiled.
“Am I right, again?” inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the
scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.
Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain
Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that
they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid
his course that way all along. “He know’d her first,” said the Captain,
with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, “in an
uncommon manner—you remember his finding her in the street when she was
a’most a babby—he has liked her ever since, and she him, as much as two
youngsters can. We’ve always said, Sol Gills and me, that they was cut
out for each other.”
A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death’s-head, could not have shown
the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at this
period of their interview.
“There’s a general indraught that way,” observed the happy Captain.
“Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being
present t’other day!”
“Most favourable to his hopes,” said Mr Carker.
“Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!” pursued the
Captain. “Why what can cut him adrift now?”
“Nothing,” replied Mr Carker.
“You’re right again,” returned the Captain, giving his hand another
squeeze. “Nothing it is. So! steady! There’s a son gone: pretty little
creetur. Ain’t there?”
“Yes, there’s a son gone,” said the acquiescent Carker.
“Pass the word, and there’s another ready for you,” quoth the Captain.
“Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal”r! Wal”r, as is
already in your business! And”—said the Captain, rising gradually to a
quotation he was preparing for a final burst, “who—comes from Sol
Gills’s daily, to your business, and your buzzums.”
The Captain’s complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow,
on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed
by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him when
he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; his
great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a masterpiece, and
his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the same cause.
“Am I right?” said the Captain.
“Captain Cuttle,” said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a
moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the
whole of himself at once, “your views in reference to Walter Gay are
thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together in
confidence.
“Honour!” interposed the Captain. “Not a word.”
“To him or anyone?” pursued the Manager.
Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.
“But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance—and guidance, of
course,” repeated Mr Carker, “with a view to your future proceedings.”
“Thank’ee kindly, I am sure,” said the Captain, listening with great
attention.
“I have no hesitation in saying, that’s the fact. You have hit the
probabilities exactly.”
“And with regard to your head Governor,” said the Captain, “why an
interview had better come about nat’ral between us. There’s time
enough.”
Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, “Time enough.” Not
articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming them
with his tongue and lips.
“And as I know—it’s what I always said—that Wal”r’s in a way to make
his fortune,” said the Captain.
“To make his fortune,” Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.
“And as Wal”r’s going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in his
day’s work, and a part of his general expectations here,” said the
Captain.
“Of his general expectations here,” assented Mr Carker, dumbly as
before.
“Why, so long as I know that,” pursued the Captain, “there’s no hurry,
and my mind’s at ease.
Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner, Captain
Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one of the
most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey might
improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness, therefore, the
Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not unlike an old block
in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his smoother flesh a
proof impression of the chinks and crevices with which the Captain’s
palm was liberally tattooed.
“Farewell!” said the Captain. “I ain’t a man of many words, but I take
it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You’ll excuse
me if I’ve been at all intruding, will you?” said the Captain.
“Not at all,” returned the other.
“Thank’ee. My berth ain’t very roomy,” said the Captain, turning back
again, “but it’s tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near
Brig Place, number nine, at any time—will you make a note of it?—and
would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the person at the
door, I should be proud to see you.
With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said “Good day!” and
walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining against
the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose
false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and
very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his
white linen and his smooth face; there was something desperately
cat-like.
The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification
that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. “Stand by, Ned!”
said the Captain to himself. “You’ve done a little business for the
youngsters today, my lad!”
In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could
not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he
thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who
had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt
disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be
happy to bestow the same upon him.
Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the astonishment
of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, and took a
general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project in which
his young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room excited his
especial admiration; but, that he might not appear too particular, he
limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a graceful
recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of politeness and
patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly joined by Mr
Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and fulfilled his
pledge—hastily, for Perch’s time was precious.
“I’ll give you for a toast,” said the Captain, “Wal”r!”
“Who?” submitted Mr Perch.
“Wal”r!” repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.
Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there was
once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much astonished
at the Captain’s coming into the City to propose a poet; indeed, if he
had proposed to put a poet’s statue up—say Shakespeare’s for example—in
a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly have done a greater outrage to Mr
Perch’s experience. On the whole, he was such a mysterious and
incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch decided not to mention him to
Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise to any disagreeable
consequences.
Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively sense
upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, remained
all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that Walter
attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic reliefs of
himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their innocent deception
upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have betrayed himself before
night. As it was, however, he kept his own secret; and went home late
from the Instrument-maker’s house, wearing the glazed hat so much on
one side, and carrying such a beaming expression in his eyes, that Mrs
MacStinger (who might have been brought up at Doctor Blimber’s, she was