 8. Paul's Further Progress, Growth, and Character Beneath the watching and a tent of eyes of time, so far another major, Paul's slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke in upon them. Distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them. An accumulating crowd of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest, and so he passed from babyhood to childhood and became a talking, walking, wondering, domby. On the downfall and banishment of Richards, the nursery may be said to have been put into commission. As a public department is sometimes when no individual atlas can be found to support it. The commissioners were, of course, Mrs. Chick and Ms. Tox, who devoted themselves to their duties with such astonishing order that major back stock had every day some new reminder of his being forsaken. While Mr. Chick, bereft of domestic supervision, cast himself upon the gay world dined at clubs and coffee houses, smelt of smoke on three different occasions, went to the play by himself, and in short loosened, as Mrs. Chick once told him, every social bond and moral obligation. Yet, in spite of his early promise, all this vigilance and care could not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate, perhaps, he pined and wasted after the dismissal of his nurse, and for long time seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through their hands and seeking his lost mother. This dangerous ground in his steeple chase toward manhood passed. He still found it very rough riding, and was grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course. Every tooth was a breakneck fence, and every pimple in the measles a stone walled to him. He was down in every fit of the hooping cough, and rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases that came trooping on each other's heels to prevent his getting up again. Some bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush, and the very chickens turning ferocious, if they have anything to do with that infant malady to which they lend their name, worried him like tiger cats. The chill of Paul's christening had struck home, perhaps to some sensitive part of his nature, which could not recover itself in the cold shade of his father. But he was an unfortunate child from that day. Mrs. Wickham often said she never see a deer so put upon. Mrs. Wickham was a waiter's wife, which would seem equivalent to being any other man's widow, whose application for an engagement in Mr. Dombe's service had been favorably considered on account of the apparent impossibility of her having any followers or anyone to follow. And who, from within a day or two of Paul's sharp weaning, had been engaged as his nurse. Mrs. Wickham was a meek woman of a fair complexion, with her eyebrows always elevated, and her head always drooping, who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to pity anybody else, and who had a surprising natural gift of viewing all subjects in an utterly forlorn and pityable light, and bringing dreadful precedents to bear upon them, and deriving the greatest consolation from the exercise of that talent. It is hardly necessary to observe that no touch of this quality ever reached the magnificent knowledge of Mr. Dombe. It would have been remarkable indeed if any had, when no one in the house, not even Mrs. Chick or Miss Tox, dared ever whisper to him that there had, on any one occasion, been the least reason for uneasiness in reference to little Paul. He had settled within himself that the child must necessarily pass through a certain routine of minor maladies, and that the sooner he did, so the better. If he could have bought him off, or provided a substitute, as in the case of an unlucky drawing for the militia, he would have been glad to do so on liberal terms. But as this was not feasible, he merely wondered, in his haughty manner now and then, what nature meant by it, and comforted himself with the reflection that there was another milestone passed upon the road, and that the great end of the journey lay so much the nearer. For the feeling uppermost in his mind, now and constantly intensifying, and increasing in it as Paul grew older, was impatience. Impatience for the time to come when his visions of their united consequence and grandeur would be triumphantly realized. Some philosophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our best loves and affections. Mr. Dombie's young child was, from the beginning, so distinctly important to him as a part of his own greatness, or, which is the same thing, of the greatness of Dombie and son, that there is no doubt his parental affections might have been easily traced, like many a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a very low foundation. But he loved his son with all the love he had. If there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it. If its very hard surface could receive the impression of any image, the image of that son was there. Though not so much as an infant or as a boy, but as a grown man, the son of the firm. Therefore he was impatient to advance into the future and to hurry over the intervening passages of his history. Therefore he had little or no anxiety about them, in spite of his love, feeling as if the boy had a charmed life, and must become the man with whom he held such constant communication in his thoughts, and for whom he planned and projected as for an existing reality every day. Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little fellow, though there was something wan and wistful in his small face that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs. Wickham's head, and many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs. Wickham's breath. His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in afterlife, and he had as hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful subservience of all other things and persons to it as heart could desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a sullen disposition, but he had a strange old-fashioned thoughtful way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his miniature armchair when he looked and talked like one of those terrible little beings in the fairy tales who, at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have been substituted. He would frequently be stricken with this precocious mood upstairs in the nursery, and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired, even while playing with Florence or driving Miss Tox in single harness. But at no time did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his father's room, he sat there with him after dinner by the fire. They were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombie so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze, his little image with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and wrapped attention of a sage. Mr. Dombie entertaining complicated worldly schemes and plans. The little image entertaining heaven knows what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts and wandering speculations. Mr. Dombie stiff with starch and arrogance. The little image by inheritance and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike and yet so monstrously contrasted. On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for a long time, and Mr. Dombie only knew that the child was awake by occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus. But Pa, what's money? The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr. Dombie's thoughts that Mr. Dombie was quite disconcerted. What is money, Paul? He answered. Money? Yes, said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair and turning the old face up towards Mr. Dombie's. What is money? Mr. Dombie was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation involving the terms circulating medium, currency, depreciation of currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious metals in the market, and so forth. But looking down at the little chair and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered. Gold and silver and copper, guineas, shillings, haypence, you know what they are. Oh, yes, I know what they are, said Paul. I don't mean that, Pa Pa. I mean what's money after all? Heaven and earth, how old his face was as he turned it up again towards his father's. What is money after all? Said Mr. Dombie, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous atom that propounded such an inquiry. I mean, Pa Pa, what can it do? Returned Paul, folding his arms. They were hardly long enough to fold, and looking at the fire, and up at him, and at the fire, and up at him again. Mr. Dombie drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the head. You'll know better by and by, my man, he said. Money, Paul, can do anything. He took hold of the little hand, and beat it softly against one of his own as he said so. But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could, and rubbing it gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the palm, and he were sharpening it, and looking at the fire again, as though the fire had been his advisor and prompter, repeated after a short pause. Anything, Pa Pa? Yes, anything. Almost, said Mr. Dombie. Anything means everything, don't it, Pa Pa? Asked his son, not observing or possibly not understanding the qualification. It includes it, yes, said Mr. Dombie. Why didn't money save me my mama? returned the child. It isn't cruel, is it? Cruel, said Mr. Dombie, settling his neck cloth, and seeming to resent the idea. No, a good thing can't be cruel. If it's a good thing, and can do anything, said the little fellow thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, I wonder why it didn't save me my mama. He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite an old one to him, and had troubled him very much, and sat with his chin resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an explanation in the fire. Mr. Dombie, having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm, for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever broached the subject of his mother to him, though he had him sitting by his side in the same manner evening after evening, expounded to him how that money, though a very potent spirit, never to be disparaged on any account whatever, could not keep people alive whose time was come to die, and how that we must all die, unfortunately, even in the city, though we were never so rich. But how that money caused us to be honored, feared, respected, courted, and admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men, and how that it could very often even keep off death for a long time together, how, for example, it had secured to his mama the services of Mr. Pilkins, by which he, Paul, had often profited himself, likewise of the great Dr. Parker Pepps, whom he had never known, and how it could do all that could be done. This, with more to the same purpose, Mr. Dombie instilled into the mind of his son, who listened attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part of what was said to him. It can't make me strong in quite well either, can it, asked Paul, after a short silence, rubbing his tiny hands. Why, you are strong in quite well, returned Mr. Dombie. Are you not? Oh, the age of the face that was turned up again, with an expression half of melancholy, half of slighness on it. You are as strong and well as such little people usually are, eh? said Mr. Dombie. Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as Florence, I know, returned the child. But I believe that when Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a time without tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes, said little Paul, warming his hands and looking in between the bars of the great, as if some ghostly puppet show were performing there. And my bones ache so. Wickham says it's my bones, that I don't know what to do. I, but that's at night, said Mr. Dombie, drawing his own chair closer to his sons and laying his hand gently on his back. Little people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well. Oh, it's not at night, papa, returned the child. It's in the day, and I lie down in Florence's lap, and she sings to me, at night I dream about such curious things. And he went on, warming his hands again and thinking about them, like an old man or a young goblin. Mr. Dombie was so astonished and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly at a loss how to pursue the conversation that he could only sit looking at his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction. Once he advanced his other hand and turned the contemplative face towards his own for a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as he released it and remained a dress towards the flickering blaze until the nurse appeared to summon him to bed. I want Florence to come for me, said Paul. Won't you come with your poor nurse, Wickham? Master Paul inquired that attendant with great pathos. No, I won't, replied Paul, composing himself in his armchair again, like the master of the house. Invoking a blessing on his innocence, Mrs. Wickham, with Drew, and presently Florence appeared in her stead. The child immediately started up with sudden readiness and animation and raised towards his father, in bidding him good night, a countenance so much brighter, so much younger, and so much more childlike altogether, that Mr. Dombie, while he felt greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it. After they had left the room altogether, he thought he heard a soft voice singing, and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to him, he had the curiosity to open the door and listen and look after them. She was toiling up the great wide vacant staircase with him in her arms. His head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up, she singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment. Mr. Dombie looked after them until they reached the top of this staircase, not without halting to rest by the way, and passed out of his sight, and then he still stood gazing upwards, until the dull rays of the moon, glimmering in a melancholy manner through the dim skylight, sent him back to his own room. Miss Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council dinner the next day, and when the cloth was removed, Mr. Dombie opened the proceedings by requiring to be informed without any gloss or reservation whether there was anything the matter with Paul and what Mr. Pilkin said about him. For the child is hardly, said Mr. Dombie, as stout as I could wish. My dear Paul returned, Mrs. Chick, with your usual discrimination which I am weak enough to envy you every time I am in your company, and so I think is Miss Tox. Oh my dear, said Miss Tox softly, how could it be otherwise presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level, still if the bird of night may, but I'll not trouble Mr. Dombie with the sentiment, it merely relates to the bulb. Mr. Dombie bent his head in stately recognition of the bulb, as an old established body. With your usual happy discriminations, my dear Paul, return, Mrs. Chick, you have hit the point at once. Our darling is not altogether as stout as we could wish. The fact is that his mind is too much for him. His soul is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the way in which that dear child Tox, said Mrs. Chick, shaking her head, no one would believe his expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon the subject of funerals. I am afraid, said Mr. Dombie, interrupting her testily, that some of those persons upstairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He was speaking to me last night about his bones, said Mr. Dombie, laying an irritated stress upon the word. What on earth has anybody to do with the bones of my son? He is not a living skeleton, I suppose. Very far from it, said Mrs. Chick, with unspeakable expression. I hope so, returned her brother, funerals again. Who talks to the child of funerals? We are not undertakers, or mutes, or gravediggers, I believe. Very far from it, interposed Mrs. Chick, with the same profound expression as before. Then who puts such things into his head, said Mr. Dombie. Really, I was quite dismayed and shocked last night. Who puts such things into his head, Louisa? My dear Paul, said Mrs. Chick after a moment's silence. It is of no use inquiring. I do not think. I will tell you candidly that Wickham is a person of a very cheerful spirit, or what one would call a daughter of Momus, Ms. Tock softly suggested. Exactly so, said Mrs. Chick. But she is exceedingly attentive and useful, and not at all presumptuous. Indeed, I never saw a more biddable woman. I would say that, for her, if I was put upon my trial before a court of justice. Well, you are not put upon your trial before a court of justice at present, Louisa, returned Mr. Dombie, chafing. And therefore it doesn't matter. My dear Paul, said Mrs. Chick in a warning voice. I must be spoken too kindly, or there is no end of me. At the same time, a premonitory redness developed itself in Mrs. Chick's eyelids, which was an invariable sign of rain, unless the weather changed directly. I was inquiring Louisa, observed Mr. Dombie in an altered voice, and after a decent interval, about Paul's health and actual state. If the dear child pursued Mrs. Chick in the tone of one who was summing up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of saying it all for the first time, is such a little weakened by that last attack, and is not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish, and if he has some temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally seem about to lose for the moment the use of his. Mrs. Chick was afraid to say limbs after Mr. Dombie's recent objection to bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Ms. Tox, who, true to her office, hazarded members. Members, repeated Mr. Dombie. I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear Louisa. Did he not? said Ms. Tox. Why, of course he did my love, retorted Mrs. Chick mildly reproachful. How can you ask me? You heard him, I say, if our dear Paul should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs. These are casualties common to many children of his time of life, and not to be prevented by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that, Paul, and admit that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the amount of care and caution and affection and self-sacrifice that has been bestowed upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the matter to your medical attendant, or to any of your dependents in this house. Call Towlinson, said Mrs. Chick. I believe he has no prejudice in our favor. Quite the contrary. I should wish to hear what accusation Towlinson can make. Surely you must know, Louisa, observed Mr. Dombie, that I don't question your natural devotion to and regard for the future head of my house. I am glad to hear it, Paul, said Mrs. Chick. But really you are very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning it I know. If your dear boy's soul is too much for his body, Paul, you should remember whose fault that is, who he takes after, I mean, and make the best of it. He's as like his papa as can be. People have noticed it in the streets. The very beetle I am informed observed it so long ago as his christening. He's a very respectable man with children of his own he ought to know. Mr. Pilkin saw Paul this morning, I believe, said Mr. Dombie. Yes, he did, returned his sister. Miss Talks and myself were present. Miss Talks and myself are always present. We make a point of it. Mr. Pilkin's has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of, which I can confirm, if that is any consolation. But, he recommended today, see air. Very wisely, Paul, I feel convinced. See air, repeated Mr. Dombie, looking at his sister. There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that, said Mrs. Chick. My George and Frederick were both ordered see air when they were about his age, and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I quite agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be unconsciously mentioned upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his little mind not to expatiate upon. But I really don't see how that is to be helped in the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a common child, there would be nothing in it. I must say, I think, with Miss Talks, that a short absence from this house, the air of Brighton, and the bodily and mental training of so judicious a person as Mrs. Pipchin, for instance. Who is Mrs. Pipchin, Louisa? asked Mr. Dombie, aghast at this familiar introduction of a name he had never heard before. Mrs. Pipchin, my dear Paul, returned his sister, is an elderly lady. Miss Talks knows her whole history, who has for some time devoted all the energies of her mind with the greatest success to the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well connected. Her husband broke his heart in. How did you say his husband broke his heart, my dear? I forget the precise circumstances. In pumping water out of the Peruvian mines, replied Miss Talks. Not being a pumper himself, of course, said Mrs. Chick, glancing at her brother, and it really did seem necessary to offer the explanation, for Miss Talks had spoken of him as if he had died at the handle. But having invested money in the speculation, which failed, I believe that Mrs. Pipchin's management of children is quite astonishing. I have heard it commended in private circles ever since I was, dear me, how high? Mrs. Chick's eye wandered about the bookcase near the bust of Mr. Pip, which was about ten feet from the ground. Perhaps I should say of Mrs. Pipchin, my dear sir, observed Miss Talks with an ingenuous blush, having been so pointedly referred to, that the encomion which has been passed upon her by your sweet sister is well merited. Many ladies and gentlemen, now growing up to be interesting members of society, have been indebted to her care. The humble individual who addresses you was once under her charge. I believe juvenile nobility itself is no stranger to her establishment. Do I understand that this respectable matron keeps an establishment, Miss Talks, inquired Mr. Dombie, condescendingly? Why, I really don't know, rejoined that lady, whether I am justified in calling it so. It is not a preparatory school by any means. Should I express my meaning? said Miss Talks with peculiar sweetness, if I designated it an infantine boarding-house of a very select description. On an exceedingly limited and particular scale suggested Mrs. Chick, with a glance at her brother. Oh, exclusion itself, said Miss Talks. There was something in this. Mrs. Pipchin's husband having broken his heart of the Peruvian minds was good. It had a rich sound. Besides, Mr. Dombie was in a state almost amounting to consternation at the idea of Paul remaining where he was one hour after his removal had been recommended by the medical practitioner. It was a stoppage and a delay upon the road the child must traverse, slowly at the best before the goal was reached. Their recommendation of Mrs. Pipchin had great weight with him, for he knew that they were jealous of any interference with their charge, and he never for a moment took it into account that they might be solicitous to divide a responsibility of which he had, as shown just now, his own established views. Broke his heart of the Peruvian minds, mused Mr. Dombie. Well, a very respectable way of doing it. Supposing we should decide, on tomorrow's inquiries, to send Paul down to Brighton to this lady, who would go with him, inquired Mr. Dombie after some reflection. I don't think you could send the child anywhere at present without Florence, my dear Paul, returned his sister, hesitating. It's quite an infatuation with him. He's very young, you know, and has his fancies. Mr. Dombie turned his head away, and going slowly to the bookcase and unlocking it, brought back a book to read. Anybody else, Louisa? He said, without looking up and turning over the leaves. Wickham, of course, Wickham would be quite sufficient, I should say, returned his sister. Paul being in such hands as Mrs. Pipchin's, you could hardly send anybody who would be a further check upon her. You would go down yourself once a week at least, of course. Of course, said Mr. Dombie, and sat looking at one page for an hour afterwards, without reading one word. This celebrated Mrs. Pipchin was a marvelous, ill-favored, ill-conditioned old lady of a stooping figure with a modeled face, like bad marble, a hook-nose, and a hard gray eye that looked as if it might have been hammered on an anvil without sustaining an injury. Forty years at least had elapsed, since the Peruvian minds had been the death of Mr. Pipchin. But his relict still wore black bombazine of such a lusterless, deep dead somber shade that gas itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any number of candles. She was generally spoken of as a great manager of children, and the secret of her management was to give them everything that they didn't like and nothing that they did, which was found to sweeten their dispositions very much. She was such a bitter old lady that one was tempted to believe there had been some mistake in the application of the Peruvian machinery, and that all her waters of gladness and milk of humankindness had been pumped out dry instead of the mines. The castle of this ogreous and child queller was in a steep by-street at Brighton, where the soil was more than usually chalky flinty and sterile, and the houses were more than usually brittle and thin, where the small front gardens had the unaccountable property of producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them, and where snails were constantly discovered holding on to the street doors, and other public places they were not expected to ornament, with the tenacity of cupping glasses. In the winter time the air couldn't be got out of the castle, and in the summer time it couldn't be got in. There was such a continual reverberation of wind in it that it sounded like a great shell which the inhabitants were obliged to hold to their ears night and day whether they liked it or not. It was not naturally a fresh smelling house, and in the window of the front parlor, which was never opened, Mrs. Pipchin kept a collection of plants in pots, which imparted an earthy flavor of their own to the establishment. However, choice examples of their kind, too, these plants were of a kind particularly adapted to the empowerment of Mrs. Pipchin. There were half a dozen specimens of the cactus writhing around bits of laugh like hairy serpents, another specimen shooting out broad claws like a green lobster, several creeping vegetables possessed of sticky and adhesive leaves, and one uncomfortable flower pot hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to have boiled over and tickling people underneath with its long green ends reminded them of spiders in which Mrs. Pipchin's dwelling was an uncommonly prolific, though perhaps it challenged competition still more proudly in the season in point of earwigs. Mrs. Pipchin's scale of charge is being high, however, to all who could afford to pay and Mrs. Pipchin very seldom sweetening the equitable acidity of her nature in favor of anybody, she was held to be an old lady of remarkable firmness, who was quite scientific in her knowledge of the childish character. On this reputation and on the broken heart of Mr. Pipchin, she had contrived, taking one year with another, to eke out a tolerably sufficient living since her husband's demise. Within three days after Mrs. Chick's first allusion to her, this excellent old lady had the satisfaction of anticipating a handsome addition to her current receipts from the pocket of Mr. Dombie, and of receiving Florence and her little brother as inmates of the castle. Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox, who had brought them down on the previous night, which they all passed at an hotel, had just driven away from the door on their journey home again, and Mrs. Pipchin, with her back to the fire, stood reviewing the newcomers like an old soldier. Mrs. Pipchin's middle-aged niece, her good-natured and devoted slave, but possessing a gaunt and iron bound aspect, and much afflicted with boils on her nose, was divesting Master Bitherstone of the clean collar he had worn on parade. Miss Panky, the only other little border at present, had that moment been walked off to the castle dungeon, an empty apartment at the back devoted to correctional purposes, for having sniffed thrice in the presence of visitors. Well, sir, said Mrs. Pipchin to Paul. How do you think you shall like me? I don't think I shall like you at all, replied Paul. I want to go away. This isn't my house. No, it's mine, retorted Mrs. Pipchin. It's a very nasty one, said Paul. There's a worse place in it than this, though, said Mrs. Pipchin, where we shut up our bad boys. Has he ever been in it? asked Paul, pointing out Master Bitherstone. Mrs. Pipchin nodded ascent, and Paul had enough to do for the rest of that day in surveying Master Bitherstone from head to foot and watching all the workings of his countenance, with the interest attaching to a boy of mysterious and terrible experiences. At one o'clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinacious and vegetable kind, when Miss Panky, a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a child, who was shampooed every morning and seemed in danger of being rubbed away altogether, was led in from captivity by the ogre herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever went to heaven. When this great truth had been thoroughly impressed upon her, she was regaled with rice, and subsequently repeated the form of grace established in the castle, in which there was a special clause thanking Mrs. Pipchin for a good dinner. Mrs. Pipchin's niece, Barinthia, took cold pork. Mrs. Pipchin, whose constitution required warm nourishment, made a special repast of mutton chops, which were brought in hot and hot, between two plates, and smelled very nice. As it rained after dinner, and they couldn't go out walking on the beach, and Mrs. Pipchin's constitution required rest after chops, they went away with berry, otherwise Barinthia, to the dungeon, an empty room looking out upon a chalk wall and a water-butt, and made ghastly by a ragged fireplace without any stove in it. Enlivened by company, however, this was the best place after all, for berry played with them there, and seemed to enjoy a game at rumps as much as they did, until Mrs. Pipchin, knocking angrily at the wall, like the cock-lane ghost revived, they left off, and berry told them stories in a whisper until twilight. For tea, there was plenty of milk and water, and bread and butter, with a little black teapot for Mrs. Pipchin and berry, and buttered toast unlimited for Mrs. Pipchin, which was brought in hot and hot like the chops. Though Mrs. Pipchin got very greasy outside over this dish, it didn't seem to lubricate her internally at all, for she was as fierce as ever, and the hard gray eye knew no softening. After tea, berry brought out a little work box with a royal pavilion on the lid, and fell to working busily, while Mrs. Pipchin, having put on her spectacles and opened a great volume bound in green bays, began to nod, and whenever Mrs. Pipchin caught herself falling forward into the fire, and woke up, she filliped Master Bitherstone on the nose for nodding too. At last it was the children's bedtime, and after prayers they went to bed. As little Miss Panky was afraid of sleeping alone in the dark, Mrs. Pipchin always made a point of driving her upstairs herself, like a sheep, and it was cheerful to hear Miss Panky moaning long afterwards in the least eligible chamber, and Mrs. Pipchin now and then going in to shake her. At about half past nine o'clock, the odor of a warm sweetbread, Mrs. Pipchin's constitution wouldn't go to sleep without sweetbread, diversified the prevailing fragrance of the house, which Mrs. Wickham said was a smell of building, and slumber fell upon the castle shortly after. The breakfast next morning was like tea overnight, except that Mrs. Pipchin took her roll instead of toast, and seemed a little more irate when it was over. Master Bitherstone read aloud to the rest a pedigree from Genesis, judiciously selected by Mrs. Pipchin, getting over the names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the treadmill. That done, Miss Panky was born away to be shampooed and Master Bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water, from which he always returned very blue and dejected. Paul and Florence went out in the meantime on the beach with Wickham, who was constantly in tears, and at about noon Mrs. Pipchin presided over some early readings. It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster. The moral of these lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character. The hero, a naughty boy, seldom in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off by anything less than a lion or a bear. Such was life at Mrs. Pipchin's. On Saturday, Mr. Domby came down, and Florence and Paul would go to his hotel and have tea. They passed the whole of Sunday with him, and generally rode out before dinner, and on these occasions, Mr. Domby seemed to grow like false staff's assailants, and instead of being one man in Buckrum to become a dozen. Sunday evening was the most melancholy evening in the week, for Mrs. Pipchin always made a point of being particularly cross on Sunday nights. Miss Panky was generally brought back from an aunt's at Rodding Dean in deep distress, and Master Bitherstone, whose relatives were all in India, and who was required to sit between the services in an erect position with his head against the parlor wall, neither moving hand nor foot, suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he once asked Florence on a Sunday night if she could give him any idea of the way back to Bengal. But it was generally said that Mrs. Pipchin was a woman of system with children, and no doubt she was. Certainly, the wild ones went home tame enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable roof. It was generally said, too, that it was highly creditable of Mrs. Pipchin to have devoted herself to this way of life and to have made such a sacrifice of her feelings and such a resolute stand against her troubles when Mr. Pipchin broke his heart in the Peruvian mines. At this exemplary old lady, Paul would sit staring in his little armchair by the fire for any length of time. He never seemed to know what weariness was when he was looking fixedly at Mrs. Pipchin. He was not fond of her. He was not afraid of her. But in those old, old moods of his, she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. There he would sit, looking at her, and warming his hands, and looking at her until he sometimes quite confounded Mrs. Pipchin, ogreous as she was. Once she asked him when they were alone what he was thinking about. You, said Paul, without the least reserve. And what are you thinking about me? Asked Mrs. Pipchin. I am thinking how old you must be, said Paul. You mustn't say such things as that young gentleman returned the dame. That'll never do. Why not? asked Paul. Because it's not polite, said Mrs. Pipchin snappishly. Not polite? said Paul. No. It's not polite? said Paul innocently, to eat all the mutton chops and toast, Wickham says. Wickham, retorted Mrs. Pipchin, coloring, is a wicked, impudent, bold-faced hussy. What's that? inquired Paul. Never you mind, sir, retorted Mrs. Pipchin. Remember the story of the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking questions? If the bull was mad, said Paul, how did he know that the boy had asked questions? Nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. I don't believe that story. You don't believe it, sir? repeated Mrs. Pipchin, amazed. No, said Paul. Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull. You little infidel, said Mrs. Pipchin. As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, and had founded his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed himself to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in his mind, with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs. Pipchin presently, that even that hearty old lady deemed it prudent to retreat, until he should have forgotten the subject. From that time, Mrs. Pipchin appeared to have something of the same odd kind of attraction toward Paul, as Paul had toward her. She would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of sitting opposite, and there he would remain in a nook between Mrs. Pipchin and the fender, with all the light of his little face absorbed into the black bombazine drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of her countenance, and peering at the hard gray eye, until Mrs. Pipchin was sometimes feigned to shut it on pretense of dozing. Mrs. Pipchin had an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the center foot of the fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire, until the contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The good old lady might have been, not to record it disrespectfully, a witch, and Paul and the cat her two familiar as they all sat by the fire together. It would have been quite in keeping with the appearance of the party, if they had all sprung up the chimney in a high wind one night, and never been heard of any more. This, however, never came to pass. The cat and Paul and Mrs. Pipchin were constantly to be found in their usual places after dark, and Paul, eschewing the companionship of Master Bitherstone, went on studying Mrs. Pipchin and the cat and the fire night by night, as if they were a book of necromancy in three volumes. Mrs. Wickham put her own construction on Paul's eccentricities, and being confirmed in her low spirits by a perplexed view of chimneys from the room where she was accustomed to sit, and by the noise of the wind and by the general dullness, gashliness was Mrs. Wickham's strong expression of her present life deduced the most dismal reflections from the foregoing premises. It was a part of Mrs. Pipchin's policy to prevent her own young hussey that was Mrs. Pipchin's generic name for female servant, from communicating with Mrs. Wickham, to which end she devoted much of her time to concealing herself behind doors, and springing out on that devoted maiden whenever she made an approach toward Mrs. Wickham's apartment. But Barry was free to hold what converse she could find in that quarter, consistently with the discharge of the multifarious duties at which she toiled incessantly from morning to night, and to Barry Mrs. Wickham unburdened her mind. What a pretty fellow he is when he's asleep, said Barry, stopping to look at Paul in bed one night when she took up Mrs. Wickham's supper. Ah, sighed Mrs. Wickham, he need be. Why, he's not ugly when he's awake, observed Barry. No, ma'am, oh no, no more with my uncle's Betsy Jane, said Mrs. Wickham. Barry looked as if she would like to trace the connection of ideas between Paul Dombie and Mrs. Wickham's uncle's Betsy Jane. My uncle's wife, Mrs. Wickham went on to say, died just like his mama. My uncle's child took on just as master Paul do. My uncle's child made people's blood run cold sometimes, she did. How, asked Barry, I wouldn't have sat up all night alone with Betsy Jane, said Mrs. Wickham. Not if you'd have put Wickham into business next morning for himself. I couldn't have done it, Miss Barry. Miss Barry naturally asked why not. But Mrs. Wickham, agreeably to the usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued her own branch of the subject without any compunction. Betsy Jane, said Mrs. Wickham, was as sweet a child as I could wish to see. I couldn't wish to see a sweeter. Everything that a child could have in the way of illnesses Betsy Jane had come through. The cramps was as common to her, said Mrs. Wickham, as Biles is to yourself, Miss Barry. Miss Barry involuntarily wrinkled her nose. But Betsy Jane, said Mrs. Wickham, lowering her voice and looking round the room and toward Paul in bed, had been minded in her cradle by her departed mother. I couldn't say how, nor I couldn't say when, nor I couldn't say whether the dear child knew it or not. But Betsy Jane had been watched by her mother, Miss Barry. You may say nonsense, I ain't offended, Miss. I hope you be able to think in your own conscience that it is nonsense. You'll find your spirits all the better for it in this. You'll excuse my being so free in this burying ground of a place which is wearing of me down. Master Paul's a little restless in his sleep. Pat his back, if you please. Of course you think, said Barry, gently doing what she was asked, that he has been nursed by his mother too. Betsy Jane, returned Mrs. Wickham, in her most solemn tones, was put upon as that child has been put upon and changed as that child has changed. I have seen her sit, often and often, think, think, thinking like him. I have seen her look, often and often, old, old, old like him. I have heard her, many a time, talk just like him. I consider that child and Betsy Jane on the same footing entirely, Miss Barry. Is your uncle's child alive, asked Barry? Yes, Miss, she is alive, returned Mrs. Wickham with an air of triumph. For it was evident Miss Barry expected the reverse, and she is married to a silver chaser. Oh yes, Miss, she is alive, said Mrs. Wickham laying strong stress on her nominative case. It being clear that somebody was dead, Mrs. Pipchins niece inquired who it was. I wouldn't wish to make you uneasy, returned Mrs. Wickham pursuing her supper, don't ask me. This was the surest way of being asked again. Miss Barry repeated her question, therefore, and after some resistance and reluctance, Mrs. Wickham laid down her knife, and again glanced round the room and at Paul in bed replied. She took fancies to people, whimsical fancies, some of them, others, affections that one might expect to see, only stronger than common. They all died. This was so very unexpected and awful to Mrs. Pipchins niece that she sat upright on the hard edge of the bedstead, breathing short and surveying her informant with looks of undisguised alarm. Mrs. Wickham shook her left forefinger stealthily toward the bed where Florence lay, then turned it upside down, and made several emphatic points at the floor, immediately below which was the parlor in which Mrs. Pipchins habitually consumed the toast. Remember my words, Miss Barry, said Mrs. Wickham, and be thankful that Master Paul is not too fond of you. I am that he's not too fond of me. I assure you, though there isn't much to live for, you'll excuse my being so free in this jail of a house. Miss Barry's emotion might have led her to patting Paul too hard on the back, or might have produced a cessation of that soothing monotony, but he turned in his bed just now, and, presently awaking, sat up in it with his hair hot and wet from the effects of some childish dream and asked for Florence. She was out of her own bed at the first sound of his voice, and bending over his pillow immediately sang him to sleep again. Mrs. Wickham, shaking her head and letting fall several tears, pointed out the little group to Barry and turned her eyes up to the ceiling. Good night, Miss, said Wickham softly. Good night, your aunt is an old lady, Miss Barry, and it's what you must have looked for often. This consolatory farewell, Mrs. Wickham accompanied with a look of heartfelt anguish, and being left alone with the two children again, and becoming conscious that the wind was blowing mournfully, she indulged in melancholy, that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries, until she was overpowered by slumber. Although the niece of Mrs. Pipchin did not expect to find that exemplary dragon prostate on the hearth rug when she went downstairs, she was relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with every present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a comfort to all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining in the course of the ensuing week when the constitutional vians still continued to disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that Paul studied her as attentively as ever and occupied his usual seat between the black skirts and the fender with unwavering constancy. But as Paul himself was no stronger at the expiration of that time than he had been on his first arrival, though he looked much healthier in the face a little carriage was got for him, in which he could lie at his ease, with an alphabet and other elementary works of reference, and be wheeled down to the seaside. Consistent in his odd tastes the child set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of this carriage and selected instead his grandfather, a wheezing old crab-faced man in a suit of battered oil skin who had got tough and stringy from long pickling in salt water and who smelt like a weedy sea beach when the tide is out. With this notable attendant to pull him along and Florence always walking by his side and the despondent Wickham bringing up the rear, he went down to the margin of the ocean every day, and there he would sit or lie in his carriage for hours together, never so distressed as by the company of children. Florence alone accepted always. Go away if you please, he would say to any child who came to bear him company. Thank you, but I don't want you. Some small voice near his ear would ask him how he was, perhaps. I am very well, thank you, he would answer, but you had better go and play if you please. Then he would turn his head and watch the child away and say to Florence, We don't want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floyd. He had even a dislike at such times to the company of Wickham, and was well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick up shells and acquaintances. His favorite spot was a quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers, and with Florence sitting by his side at work or reading to him or talking to him and the wind blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more. Floyd, he said one day, where's India, where that boy's friends live? Oh, it's a long, long distance off, said Florence, raising her eyes from her work. Weeks off? asked Paul. Yes, dear, many weeks journey night and day. If you were in India, Floyd, said Paul, after being silent for a minute. I should. What is it that mama did I forget? Loved me, answered Florence. No, no. Don't I love you now, Floyd? What is it? Died. If you were in India, I should die, Floyd. She hurriedly put her work aside and laid her head down on his pillow, caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there. He would be better soon. Oh, I am a great deal better now, he answered. I don't mean that. I mean that I should die of being so, so sorry and so lonely, Floyd. Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep and slept quietly for a long time, awaking suddenly. He listened, started up and sat listening. Florence asked him what he thought he heard. I want to know what it says, he answered, looking steadily in her face. The sea, Floyd, what is it that it keeps on saying? She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves. Yes, yes, he said, but I know that they are always saying something, always the same thing. What place is over there? He rose up looking eagerly at the horizon. She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said he didn't mean that. He meant farther away, farther away. Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break off to try to understand what it was that the waves were always saying and would rise up in his couch and look towards that invisible region far away. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. That spice of romance and love of the marvelous, of which there was a pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and which the guardianship of his uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very much weakened by the waters of stern practical experience, was the occasion of his attaching an uncommon and delightful interest to the adventure of Florence with good Mrs. Brown. He pampered and cherished it in his memory, especially that part of it with which he had been associated, until it became the spoiled child of his fancy and took its own way and did what it liked with it. The recollection of those incidents and his own share in them may have been made the more captivating, perhaps, by the weekly dreamings of old Saul and Captain Cuddle on Sundays. Hardly a Sunday passed without mysterious references being made by one or other of those worthy chums to Richard Whittington, and the latter gentleman had even gone so far as to purchase a ballad of considerable antiquity that had long fluttered among many others, chiefly expressive of maritime sentiments, on a dead wall in the commercial road. Which poetical performance set forth the courtship and nuptials of a promising young co-whipper with a certain lovely peg, the accomplished daughter of the master and part owner of a Newcastle Collier. In this stirring legend, Captain Cuddle described a profound metaphysical bearing on the case of Walter and Florence, and it excited him so much that on very festive occasions, as birthdays and a few other non-Dominical holidays, he would roar through the whole song in the little back parlor, making an amazing shake on the word pig, with which every verse concluded in compliment to the heroine of the piece. But a frank, free-spirited, open-hearted boy is not much given to analyzing the nature of his own feelings, however strong their hold upon him, and Walter would have found it difficult to decide this point. He had a great affection for the wharf where he had encountered Florence and for the streets, albeit not enchanting in themselves, by which they had come home. The shoes that had so often tumbled off by the way he preserved in his own room, and sitting in the little back parlor of an evening, he had drawn a whole gallery of fancy portraits of good Mrs. Brown. It may be that he had become a little smarter in his dress after that memorable occasion, and he certainly liked, in his leisure time, to walk towards that quarter of the town where Mr. Dombie's house was situated, on the vague chance of passing little Florence in the street. But the sentiment of all this was as boyish and innocent as could be. Florence was very pretty, and it is pleasant to admire a pretty face. Florence was defenseless and weak, and it was a proud thought that he had been able to render her any protection and assistance. Florence was the most grateful little creature in the world, and it was delightful to see her bright gratitude beaming in her face. Florence was neglected and coldly looked upon, and his breast was full of youthful interest for the slighted child in her dull, stately home. Thus it came about that, perhaps some half a dozen times in the course of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the street, and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs. Wickham, who, with a characteristic alteration of his name, invariably spoke of him as young graves, was so well used to this, knowing the story of their acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the other hand, rather looked out for these occasions, her sensitive young heart being secretly propitiated by Walter's good looks, and inclining to the belief that its sentiments were responded to. In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As to its adventurous beginning and all those little circumstances which gave it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account, more as a pleasant story, very agreeable to his imagination and not to be dismissed from it, then as a part of any matter of fact with which he was concerned. They set off Florence very much to his fancy, but not himself. Sometimes he thought, and then he walked very fast. What a grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on the day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done wonders there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come back an admiral of all the colors of the dolphin, or at least a post-captain with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have married Florence, then a beautiful young woman in spite of Mr. Dombie's teeth, cravat and watched chain, and borne her away to the blue shores of somewhere or other triumphantly. But these flights of fancy seldom burnished the brass plate of Dombie and Son's offices into a tablet of golden hope, or shed a brilliant luster on their dirty skylights. And when the captain and uncle Saul talked about Richard Whittington and master's daughters, Walter felt that he understood his true position at Dombie and Son's much better than they did. So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day, in a cheerful painstaking merry spirit, and saw through the sanguine complexion of uncle Saul and captain Cuddle, and yet entertained a thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to which theirs were work-a-day probabilities. Such was his condition at the Pipchen period, when he looked a little older than of Yor, but not much, and was the same light-footed, light-hearted, light-headed lad as when he charged into the parlor at the head of uncle Saul and the imaginary borders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira. Uncle Saul, said Walter, I don't think you're well. You haven't eaten any breakfast. I shall bring a doctor to you if you go on like this. He can't give me what I want, my boy, said uncle Saul. At least he's in a good practice if he can, and then he wouldn't. What is it, uncle, customers? I returned Solomon with a sigh. Customers would do. Confounded uncle, said Walter, putting down his breakfast cup with a clatter, and striking his hand on the table. When I see the people going up and down the street, in shoals all day, and passing and repassing the shop every minute by scores, I feel half tempted to rush out, collar somebody, bring them in, and make him buy fifty pounds worth of instruments for ready money. What are you looking at the door for? continued Walter, apostrophizing an old gentleman with a powdered head, inaudibly to him, of course, who was staring at a ship's telescope with all his might and main. That's no use. I could do that. Come in and buy it. The old gentleman, however, having satiated his curiosity, walked calmly away. There he goes, said Walter. That's the way with him all. But uncle, I say, uncle Saul, for the old man was meditating and had not responded to his first appeal. Don't be cast down. Don't be out of spirits, uncle. When orders do come, they'll come in such a crowd you won't be able to execute them. I shall be past executing them. Whenever they come, my boy, return Solomon gills. They'll never come to this shop again till I am out of it. I say, uncle, you mustn't really, you know, urged Walter. Don't. Uncle Saul endeavored to assume a cheery look, and smiled across the little table at him as pleasantly as he could. There's nothing more than usual the matter. Is there, uncle? said Walter, leaning his elbows on the tea tray and bending over to speak the more confidentially and kindly. Be open with me, uncle, if there is, and tell me all about it. No, no, no, returned old Saul. More than usual? No, no. What should they be the matter more than usual? Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. That's what I want to know, he said. And you ask me? I'll tell you what, uncle, when I see you like this I am quite sorry that I live with you. Old Saul opened his eyes involuntarily. Yes, though nobody ever was happier than I am, and always have been with you, I am quite sorry that I live with you when I see you with anything on your mind. I am a little dull at such times, I know, observed Solomon, meekly rubbing his hands. What I mean, uncle Saul, pursued Walter, bending over a little more to pat him on the shoulder, is that, then I feel you ought to have, sitting here, and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice little dumpling of a wife, you know, a comfortable, capital cozy old lady who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you and keep you in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was. I am sure I ought to be, but I am only a nephew, and can't be such a companion to you when you're low and out of sorts, as she would have made herself years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could cheer you up. And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind, that I feel quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than a blundering young, rough and tough boy like me, who has got the will to console you, uncle, but hasn't got the way, hasn't got the way, repeated Walter, reaching over further yet to shake his uncle by the hand. Wally, my dear boy, said Solomon, if the cozy little old lady had taken her place in this parlor five and forty years ago, I never could have been fonder of her than I am of you. I know that uncle Saul, returned Walter, Lord bless you I know that, but you wouldn't have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable secrets if she had been with you, because she would have known how to relieve you of them, and I don't. Yes, yes, you do, returned the instrument maker. Well then, what's the matter, uncle Saul, said Walter coaxingly. Come, what's the matter? Solomon Gilles persisted that there was nothing the matter, and maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to make a very indifferent imitation of believing him. All I can say is, uncle Saul, that if there is, but there isn't, said Solomon. Very well, said Walter, then I've no more to say, and that's lucky, for my time's up for going to business. I shall look in by and by when I'm out to see how you get on, uncle, and mind uncle. I'll never believe you again, and never tell you anything more about Mr. Carker the junior, if I find out that you have been deceiving me. Solomon Gilles laughingly defied him to find out anything of the kind, and Walter, revolving in his thoughts all sorts of impractical ways of making fortunes and placing the wooden midshipmen in a position of independence, but took himself to the offices of Dombie and Son with a heavier countenance than he usually carried there. There lived in those days round the corner in Bishop's Gate Street without one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept to shop where every description of second-hand furniture was exhibited in the most uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in combinations the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on to washing stands, with which difficulty poised themselves on the shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side of dining tables. Gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of other dining tables were among its most reasonable arrangements. A banquet array of dish covers, wine glasses and decanters was generally to be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post bedstead for the entertainment of such genial company as half a dozen pokers and a whole lamp. A set of window curtains, with no windows belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of chests of drawers loaded with little jars from chemist shops, while a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano wasting away a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and distracted brain of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger and seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up as the pecuniary affairs of their former owners. There was always great choice in Mr. Broglie's shop, and various looking glasses accidentally placed at compound interest of reflection and refraction presented to the eye an eternal perspective of bankruptcy and ruin. Mr. Broglie himself was a moist-eyed, pink-complexion, crisp-haired man of a bulky figure and an easy temper. For that class of Cais Marius, who sits upon the runes of other people's carthages, can keep up his spirits well enough. He had looked in at Solomon's shop sometimes to ask a question about articles in Solomon's way of business, and Walter knew him sufficiently to give him good day when they met in the street. But as that was the extent of the broker's acquaintance with Solomon Gill's, also Walter was not a little surprised when he came back in the course of the forenoon, agreeably to his promise to find Mr. Broglie sitting in the back parlor with his hands in his pockets and his hat hanging up behind the door. Well, Uncle Saul, said Walter, the old man was sitting ruefully on the opposite side of the table with his spectacles over his eyes for a wonder instead of on his forehead. How are you now? Solomon shook his head and waved one hand towards the broker as introducing him. Is there anything the matter, asked Walter, with a catching in his breath? No, no, there's nothing the matter, said Mr. Broglie. Don't let it put you out of the way. Walter looked from the broker to his uncle in mute amazement. The fact is, said Mr. Broglie, there's a little payment on a bond debt, three hundred and seventy odd, overdue, and I'm in possession. In possession, cried Walter, looking round at the shop. Ah, said Mr. Broglie, in confidential ascent and nodding his head as if he would urge the advisability of their all being comfortable together. It's an execution, that's what it is. Don't let it put you out of the way. I come myself because of keeping it quiet and sociable. You know me, it's quite private. Uncle Saul, faltered Walter. Wally, my boy, returned his uncle. It's the first time. Such a calamity never happened to me before. I'm an old man to begin, putting up his spectacles again, for they were useless any longer to conceal his emotion. He covered his face with his hand and sobbed aloud, and his tears fell down upon his coffee-colored waistcoat. Uncle Saul, pray, oh, don't, exclaimed Walter, who really felt a thrill of terror in seeing the old man weep. For God's sake, don't do that, Mr. Broglie, what shall I do? I should recommend you looking up a friend or so, said Mr. Broglie, and talking it over. To be sure, cried Walter, catching it anything. Certainly. Thank ye. Captain Cuddle's the man, Uncle. Wait till I run to Captain Cuddle. Keep your eye upon my uncle, will ye, Mr. Broglie, and make him as comfortable as you can while I am gone. Don't despair, Uncle Saul. Try and keep a good heart. There's a dear fellow. Saying this with great fervor and disregarding the old man's broken remonstrances, Walter dashed out of the shop again as hard as he could go, and, having hurried around to the office to excuse himself on the plea of his uncle's sudden illness, set off full speed for Captain Cuddle's residence. Everything seemed altered as he ran along the streets. There were the usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, wagons, and foot passengers, but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden midshipmen made it strange and new. Houses and shops were different from what they used to be, and bore Mr. Broglie's warrant on their fronts in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the very churches, for their spires rose into the sky with an unwanted air. Even the sky itself was changed, and had an execution in it plainly. Captain Cuddle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened, now and then, to let some wandering monster of a ship come roaming up the street like a stranded leviathan. The gradual change from land to water on the approach to Captain Cuddle's lodgings was curious. It began with the erection of flagstaffs, as appurtenances to public houses. Then came slopsellers' shops, with Guernsey shirts, suester hats, and canvas pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order, hanging up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chain cable forges, where sledge hammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then came rows of houses, with little vain surmounted masts, uprearing themselves from among the scarlet beans. Then ditches, then pollard willows, then more ditches, then unaccountable patches of dirty water, hardly to be described for the ships that covered them. Then the air was perfumed with chips, and all other trades were swallowed up in mast ore and block making and boat building. Then the ground grew marshy and unsettled. Then there was nothing to be smelt but rum and sugar. Then Captain Cuddle's lodgings, at once a first floor and a top story, in brig place, were close before you. The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as well as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest imagination to separate from any part of their dress, however insignificant. Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the Captain instantly poked his head out of one of his little front windows and hailed him with a hard-glazed hat already on it and the shirt collar like a sail and the wide suit of blue all standing as usual, Walter was as fully persuaded that he was always in that state as if the Captain had been a bird and those had been his feathers. Walter, my lad, said Captain Cuddle, stand by and knock again hard. It's washing day. Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the knocker. Hard it is, said Captain Cuddle, and immediately drew in his head as if he expected a squall, nor was he mistaken for a widow lady with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders and her arms frothy with soap suds and smoking with hot water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she looked at Walter she looked at the knocker and then, measuring him with her eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had any left of it. Captain Cuddle's at home I know, said Walter with a conciliatory smile. Is he? replied the widow lady. Indeed, he has just been speaking to me, said Walter in breathless explanation. Has he? replied the widow lady. Then perhaps you'll give him Mrs. McStinger's respects and say that the next time he lowers himself and his lodgings by talking out of winter shall thank him to come down and open the door, too. Mrs. McStinger spoke loud and listened for any observations that might be offered from the first floor. I'll mention it, said Walter, if you'll have the goodness to let me in, ma'am. For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the doorway and put there to prevent the little McStinger's in their moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps. A boy that can knock my door down, said Mrs. McStinger contemptuously, can get over that, I should hope. But Walter, taking this as permission to enter and getting over it, Mrs. McStinger immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman's house was her castle or not, and whether she was to be broke in upon by raff. On these subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate, when Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an artificial fog occasioned by the washing which covered the banisters with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuddle's room and found that gentleman in ambush behind the door. Never owed her a penny, Walter, said Captain Cuddle in a low voice and with visible marks of trepidation on his countenance. Done her a world of good turns and the children, too, vixen at times, though. I should go away, Captain Cuddle, said Walter. Durson do it, Walter, returned Captain. She'll find me out wherever I went. Sit down, House Gills. The Captain was dining, in his hat, off cold loin of mutton, porter, and some smoking hot potatoes which he had cooked himself and took out of a little saucepan before the fire as he wanted them. He unscrewed his hook at dinner time and screwed a knife into its wooden socket instead, with which he had already begun to peel one of these potatoes for Walter. His rooms were very small and strongly impregnated with tobacco smoke, but snug enough, everything being stowed away as if there were an earthquake regularly every half hour. House Gills, inquired the Captain. Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath and lost his spirits, or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given him, looked at his questioner for a moment and said, O Captain Cuddle, and burst into tears. No words can describe the Captain's consternation at this sight. Mrs. McStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the fork, and would have dropped the knife, too, if he could, and sat gazing at the boy, as if he expected to hear, next moment, that a gulf had opened in the city, which had swallowed up his old friend, coffee-colored suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all. But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain Cuddle, after a moment's reflection, started up into full activity. He emptied out a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard, his whole stack of ready money, amounting to thirteen pounds and half a crown, which he transferred to one of the pockets of his square blue coat, further enriched that depository with the contents of his plate chest, consisting of two withered atomies of teaspoons, and an obsolete pair of knock-kneed sugar tongs. Pulled up his immense double-cased silver watch from the depths in which it reposed to assure himself that the valuable was sound and whole, reattached the hook to his right wrist, and, seizing the stick covered over with knobs, bade Walter come along. Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement that Mrs. McStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuddle hesitated at last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some thoughts of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favor of stratagem. Walter, said the Captain, with a timid wink, go afore my lad, sing out, goodbye, Captain Cuddle, when you're in the passage and shut the door, then wait at the corner of the street till you see me. These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of the enemy's tactics, for when Walter got downstairs, Mrs. McStinger glided out of the little back kitchen like an avenging spirit. But not gliding out upon the Captain, as she had expected, she merely made a further allusion to the knocker, and glided in again. Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuddle could some encourage to attempt his escape, for Walter waited so long at the street corner, looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of the hard-glazed hat. At length the Captain burst out of the door with the suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great pace, at a great pace, and never once looking over his shoulder, pretended as soon as they were well out of the street to whistle a tune. Uncle much hoved down, Walter, inquired the Captain, as they were walking along. I'm afraid so, if you had seen him this morning, you would never have forgotten it. Walk fast, Walter, my lad, return the Captain, mending his pace, and walk the same all the days of your life, overhaul the cataclysm for that advice, and keep it. The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gill's, mingled perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs. McStinger to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's moral improvement. They interchanged no other word until they arrived at Old Sal's door, where the unfortunate wooden midshipman, with his instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty. Gill's, said the Captain, hurrying into the back parlor, and taking him by the hand quite tenderly. Lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it. All you've got to do, said the Captain, with the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one of the most precious, practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom, is to lay your head well to the wind and we'll fight through it. Old Sal returned the pressure of his hand and thanked him. Captain cuddled then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of the occasion, put down upon the table the two teaspoons and the sugar tongs, the silver watch and the ready money, and asked Mr. Brogley, the broker, what the damage was. Come, what do you make of it? said Captain Cuddle. Why, Lord, help you return the broker. You don't suppose that properties of any use, do you? Why not? inquired the Captain. Why, the amount's three hundred and seventy odd, replied the broker. Never mind, returned the Captain, though he was evidently dismayed by the figures. All's fish that comes to your net, I suppose. Certainly, said Mr. Brogley, but Sprats ain't whales, you know. The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the Captain. He ruminated for a minute, eyeing the broker, meanwhile, as a deep genius, and then called the instrument maker aside. Gills, said Captain Cuddle, what's the bearing of this business? Who's the creditor? Hush, returned the old man. Come away. Don't speak before Wally. It's a matter of security. For Wally's father, an old bond, I've paid a good deal of it, Ned. But the times are so bad with me that I can't do more just now. I've foreseen it, but I couldn't help it, not a word before Wally, for all the world. You've got some money, haven't you, whispered the Captain? Yes, yes, oh yes, I've got some, returned old Saul. First putting his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig between them, as if he thought he might ring some gold out of it. But I, the little I have got, isn't convertible, Ned. It can't be got at. I have 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 Gill's knew better than that. On behind the time altogether, my dear Ned, said Saul, in resigned despair. A long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind it. The stock had better been 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 himself a stock and take him down, said the old man, pointing feebly to the wooden midshipmen, and let us both be broken up together. And what do you mean to do with Walter? said the Captain. There, there. Sit you down, Gill. Sit you down and let me think of this. If I weren'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 Saul thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against the back parlor fireplace instead. Captain Cuddle 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 settling 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 constrained 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 lodestones, looking through telescopes, endeavoring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride onto his nose and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions. Walter, said the Captain, at last, I've got it. Have you, Captain Cuddle? cried Walter with great animation. Come this way, my lad, said the Captain. The stocks are security. I'm another. Your governor's the man to advance the money. Mr. Domby? faltered Walter. The Captain nodded gravely. Look at him, he said. Look at Gills. If they were 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. Domby? faltered Walter. You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he's there, said Captain Cuddle, 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. Domby was not there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton. I tell you what, Walter, 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, Walter. We'll go to Brighton by the afternoon's coach. If the application must be made to Mr. Domby 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 Cuddle, to which he hardly thought Mr. Domby 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. Cuddle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of Solomon Gill's and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the sugar tongs, and all the silver watch to his pocket, with a view, as Walter thought, with horror to making a gorgeous impression on Mr. Domby, 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.