“If there should be someone listening and watching,” whispered Florence. “Someone who saw me come—who followed me, perhaps.”
“It ain’t the young woman, lady lass, is it?” said the Captain, taken with a bright idea.
“Susan?” said Florence, shaking her head. “Ah no! Susan has been gone from me a long time.”
“Not deserted, I hope?” said the Captain. “Don’t say that that there young woman’s run, my pretty!”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Florence. “She is one of the truest hearts in the world!”
The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head all over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing several times, with infinite complacency, and with a beaming countenance, that he know’d it.
“So you’re quiet now, are you, brother?” said the Captain to Diogenes. “There warn’t nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!”
Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction for him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to himself, unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the Captain’s observation of Florence’s fatigue and faintness, decided him to prepare Sol Gills’s chamber as a place of retirement for her immediately. He therefore hastily betook himself to the top of the house, and made the best arrangement of it that his imagination and his means suggested.
It was very clean already; and the Captain, being an orderly man, and accustomed to make things shipshape, converted the bed into a couch, by covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar contrivance, the Captain converted the little dressing-table into a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a flowerpot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a songbook, as a small collection of rarities, that made a choice appearance. Having darkened the window, and straightened the pieces of carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these preparations with great delight, and descended to the little parlour again, to bring Florence to her bower.
Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible for Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his head, he would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to allow her to do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and the Captain carried her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with a great watch-coat.
“My lady lass!” said the Captain, “you’re as safe here as if you was at the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what you want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself smart with that there balsam for the still small woice of a wounded mind! When there’s anything you want, my Heart’s Delight, as this here humble house or town can offer, pass the word to Ed’ard Cuttle, as’ll stand off and on outside that door, and that there man will wibrate with joy.” The Captain concluded by kissing the hand that Florence stretched out to him, with the chivalry of any old knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room.
Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes, and satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one loitering about it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the threshold, keeping a bright lookout, and sweeping the whole street with his spectacles.
“How de do, Captain Gills?” said a voice beside him. The Captain, looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr. Toots while sweeping the horizon.
“How are, you, my lad?” replied the Captain.
“Well, I’m pretty well, thank’ee, Captain Gills,” said Mr. Toots. “You know I’m never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don’t expect that I ever shall be any more.”
Mr. Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme of his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of the agreement between them.
“Captain Gills,” said Mr. Toots, “if I could have the pleasure of a word with you, it’s—it’s rather particular.”
“Why, you see, my lad,” replied the Captain, leading the way into the parlour, “I ain’t what you may call exactly free this morning; and therefore if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.”
“Certainly, Captain Gills,” replied Mr. Toots, who seldom had any notion of the Captain’s meaning. “To clap on, is exactly what I could wish to do. Naturally.”
“If so be, my lad,” returned the Captain. “Do it!”
The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous secret—by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his roof, while the innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him—that a perspiration broke out on his forehead, and he found it impossible, while slowly drying the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep his eyes off Mr. Toots’s face. Mr. Toots, who himself appeared to have some secret reasons for being in a nervous state, was so unspeakably disconcerted by the Captain’s stare, that after looking at him vacantly for some time in silence, and shifting uneasily on his chair, he said:
“I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don’t happen to see anything particular in me, do you?”
“No, my lad,” returned the Captain. “No.”
“Because you know,” said Mr. Toots with a chuckle, “I know I’m wasting away. You needn’t at all mind alluding to that. I—I should like it. Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I’m in that state of thinness. It’s a gratification to me. I—I’m glad of it. I—I’d a great deal rather go into a decline, if I could. I’m a mere brute you know, grazing
