“Mr. Toots,” said Walter, “I am happy to be able to relieve your mind. Pray calm yourself. Miss Dombey is safe and well.”
“Sir!” cried Mr. Toots, starting from his chair and shaking hands with him anew, “the relief is so excessive, and unspeakable, that if you were to tell me now that Miss Dombey was married even, I could smile. Yes, Captain Gills,” said Mr. Toots, appealing to him, “upon my soul and body, I really think, whatever I might do to myself immediately afterwards, that I could smile, I am so relieved.”
“It will be a greater relief and delight still, to such a generous mind as yours,” said Walter, not at all slow in returning his greeting, “to find that you can render service to Miss Dombey. Captain Cuttle, will you have the kindness to take Mr. Toots upstairs?”
The Captain beckoned to Mr. Toots, who followed him with a bewildered countenance, and, ascending to the top of the house, was introduced, without a word of preparation from his conductor, into Florence’s new retreat.
Poor Mr. Toots’s amazement and pleasure at sight of her were such, that they could find a vent in nothing but extravagance. He ran up to her, seized her hand, kissed it, dropped it, seized it again, fell upon one knee, shed tears, chuckled, and was quite regardless of his danger of being pinned by Diogenes, who, inspired by the belief that there was something hostile to his mistress in these demonstrations, worked round and round him, as if only undecided at what particular point to go in for the assault, but quite resolved to do him a fearful mischief.
“Oh Di, you bad, forgetful dog! Dear Mr. Toots, I am so rejoiced to see you!”
“Thankee,” said Mr. Toots, “I am pretty well, I’m much obliged to you, Miss Dombey. I hope all the family are the same.”
Mr. Toots said this without the least notion of what he was talking about, and sat down on a chair, staring at Florence with the liveliest contention of delight and despair going on in his face that any face could exhibit.
“Captain Gills and Lieutenant Walters have mentioned, Miss Dombey,” gasped Mr. Toots, “that I can do you some service. If I could by any means wash out the remembrance of that day at Brighton, when I conducted myself—much more like a Parricide than a person of independent property,” said Mr. Toots, with severe self-accusation, “I should sink into the silent tomb with a gleam of joy.”
“Pray, Mr. Toots,” said Florence, “do not wish me to forget anything in our acquaintance. I never can, believe me. You have been far too kind and good to me always.”
“Miss Dombey,” returned Mr. Toots, “your consideration for my feelings is a part of your angelic character. Thank you a thousand times. It’s of no consequence at all.”
“What we thought of asking you,” said Florence, “is, whether you remember where Susan, whom you were so kind as to accompany to the coach-office when she left me, is to be found.”
“Why I do not certainly, Miss Dombey,” said Mr. Toots, after a little consideration, “remember the exact name of the place that was on the coach; and I do recollect that she said she was not going to stop there, but was going farther on. But, Miss Dombey, if your object is to find her, and to have her here, myself and the Chicken will produce her with every dispatch that devotion on my part, and great intelligence on the Chicken’s, can ensure.”
Mr. Toots was so manifestly delighted and revived by the prospect of being useful, and the disinterested sincerity of his devotion was so unquestionable, that it would have been cruel to refuse him. Florence, with an instinctive delicacy, forbore to urge the least obstacle, though she did not forbear to overpower him with thanks; and Mr. Toots proudly took the commission upon himself for immediate execution.
“Miss Dombey,” said Mr. Toots, touching her proffered hand, with a pang of hopeless love visibly shooting through him, and flashing out in his face, “Goodbye! Allow me to take the liberty of saying, that your misfortunes make me perfectly wretched, and that you may trust me, next to Captain Gills himself. I am quite aware, Miss Dombey, of my own deficiencies—they’re not of the least consequence, thank you—but I am entirely to be relied upon, I do assure you, Miss Dombey.”
With that Mr. Toots came out of the room, again accompanied by the Captain, who, standing at a little distance, holding his hat under his arm and arranging his scattered locks with his hook, had been a not uninterested witness of what passed. And when the door closed behind them, the light of Mr. Toots’s life was darkly clouded again.
“Captain Gills,” said that gentleman, stopping near the bottom of the stairs, and turning round, “to tell you the truth, I am not in a frame of mind at the present moment, in which I could see Lieutenant Walters with that entirely friendly feeling towards him that I should wish to harbour in my breast. We cannot always command our feelings,
