“Wal’r!” he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, “Look at him! Love! Honour! And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!”
He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and saying he had forgotten ’em these forty year.
“But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn’t know where to lay my hand upon ’em, Gills,” he observed. “It comes of not wasting language as some do.”
The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young Norval’s father, “increase his store.” At any rate he became silent, and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:—
“I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?”
“I shouldn’t wonder, Captain Cuttle,” returned the boy.
“And it would go!” said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in the air with his hook. “Lord, how that clock would go!”
For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the dial.
“But he’s chock-full of science,” he observed, waving his hook towards the stock-in-trade. “Look’ye here! Here’s a collection of ’em. Earth, air, or water. It’s all one. Only say where you’ll have it. Up in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D’ye want to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He’ll do it for you.”
It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle’s reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.
“Ah!” he said, with a sigh, “it’s a fine thing to understand ’em. And yet it’s a fine thing not to understand ’em. I hardly know which is best. It’s so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with: and never know how.”
Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion (which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter’s mind), could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace.
“Come!” cried the subject of this admiration, returning. “Before you have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.”
“Stand by!” said Ned, filling his glass. “Give the boy some more.”
“No more, thank’e, Uncle!”
“Yes, yes,” said Sol, “a little more. We’ll finish the bottle, to the House, Ned—Walter’s House. Why it may be his House one of these days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master’s daughter.”
“ ‘Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old you will never depart from it,’ ” interposed the Captain. “Wal’r! Overhaul the book, my lad.”
“And although Mr. Dombey hasn’t a daughter,” Sol began.
“Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,” said the boy, reddening and laughing.
“Has he?” cried the old man. “Indeed I think he has too.”
“Oh! I know he has,” said the boy. “Some of ’em were talking about it in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,” lowering his voice, “that he’s taken a dislike to her, and that she’s left, unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind’s so set all the while upon having his son in the House, that although he’s only a baby now, he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly, and the books kept closer than they used to be, and has even been seen (when he thought he wasn’t) walking in the Docks, looking at his ships and property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he and his son will possess together. That’s what they say. Of course, I don’t know.”
“He knows all about her already, you see,” said the Instrument-maker.
“Nonsense, Uncle,” cried the boy, still reddening and laughing, boy-like. “How can I help hearing what they tell me?”
“The Son’s a little in our way at present, I’m afraid, Ned,” said the old man, humouring the joke.
“Very much,” said the Captain.
“Nevertheless, we’ll drink him,” pursued Sol. “So, here’s to Dombey and Son.”
“Oh, very well, Uncle,” said the boy, merrily. “Since you have introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have said that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast. So here’s to Dombey—and Son—and Daughter!”
V
Paul’s Progress and Christening
Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so far appreciated by Mr. Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not only bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but even entrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as “pray tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very good,” or “mention to Miss Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her”; specialities which made a deep impression on the lady thus distinguished.
Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs. Chick, that “nothing could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of that sweet child”; and an observer of Miss Tox’s
