“Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?” asked Florence.
Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment book on the shop desk, read the address aloud.
Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron’s secret charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they could go to Captain Cuttle’s house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of the absence of any tidings of the Son and Heir; and bring him, if they could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were appointed arbitrator of the argument.
In fine, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back. Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part whatever in its production.
While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney-coach, after encountering unheard-of difficulties from swivel-bridges, soft roads, impassable canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet-beans and little washhouses, and many such obstacles abounding in that country, stopped at the corner of Brig Place. Alighting here, Florence and Susan Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of Captain Cuttle.
It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs. MacStinger’s great cleaning days. On these occasions, Mrs. MacStinger was knocked up by the policeman at a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely succumbed before twelve o’clock next night. The chief object of this institution appeared to be, that Mrs. MacStinger should move all the furniture into the back garden at early dawn, walk about the house in pattens all day, and move the furniture back again after dark. These ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the soles of their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking from the maternal bird during the progress of the solemnities.
At the moment when Florence and Susan Nipper presented themselves at Mrs. MacStinger’s door, that worthy but redoubtable female was in the act of conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three months, along the passage, for forcible deposition in a sitting posture on the street pavement: Alexander being black in the face with holding his breath after punishment, and a cool paving-stone being usually found to act as a powerful restorative in such cases.
The feelings of Mrs. MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were outraged by the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on Florence’s face. Therefore, Mrs. MacStinger asserting those finest emotions of our nature, in preference to weakly gratifying her curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and during the application of the paving-stone, and took no further notice of the strangers.
“I beg your pardon, Ma’am,” said Florence, when the child had found his breath again, and was using it. “Is this Captain Cuttle’s house?”
“No,” said Mrs. MacStinger.
“Not Number Nine?” asked Florence, hesitating.
“Who said it wasn’t Number Nine?” said Mrs. MacStinger.
Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs. MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.
Mrs. MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. “What do you want with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?” said Mrs. MacStinger.
“Should you? Then I’m sorry that you won’t be satisfied,” returned Miss Nipper.
“Hush, Susan! If you please!” said Florence. “Perhaps you can have the goodness to tell us where Captain Cuttle lives, Ma’am, as he don’t live here.”
“Who says he don’t live here?” retorted the implacable MacStinger. “I said it wasn’t Cap’en Cuttle’s house—and it ain’t his house—and forbid it, that it ever should be his house—for Cap’en Cuttle don’t know how to keep a house—and don’t deserve to have a house—it’s my house—and when I let the upper floor to Cap’en Cuttle, oh I do a thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!”
Mrs. MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering these remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if from a rifle possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot, the Captain’s voice was heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his own room, “Steady below!”
“Since you want Cap’en Cuttle, there he is!” said Mrs. MacStinger, with an angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter, without any more parley, and on Susan following, Mrs. MacStinger recommenced her pedestrian exercise in pattens, and Alexander MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying to attend to the conversation, began to wail again, entertaining himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical, with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the hackney-coach.
The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small desolate island, lying about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The Captain’s windows had been cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the stove had been
