“Good Heaven!” said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite compass-case. “It can’t be! Well, I—”
“No, nor anybody else,” said Walter, anticipating the rest. “Nobody would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol—take care of the plates—cut some dinner for her, will you, Uncle—throw those shoes under the grate. Miss Florence—put your feet on the fender to dry—how damp they are—here’s an adventure, Uncle, eh?—God bless my soul, how hot I am!”
Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive bewilderment. He patted Florence’s head, pressed her to eat, pressed her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes, and ears, and had no clear perception of anything except that he was being constantly knocked against and tumbled over by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about the room attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing at all.
“Here, wait a minute, Uncle,” he continued, catching up a candle, “till I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I’ll be off. I say, Uncle, isn’t this an adventure?”
“My dear boy,” said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts of the parlour, “it’s the most extraordinary—”
“No, but do, Uncle, please—do, Miss Florence—dinner, you know, Uncle.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton, as if he were catering for a giant. “I’ll take care of her, Wally! I understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready. Lord bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London.”
Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy returned, she was sleeping peacefully.
“That’s capital!” he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it squeezed a new expression into his face. “Now I’m off. I’ll just take a crust of bread with me, for I’m very hungry—and—don’t wake her, Uncle Sol.”
“No, no,” said Solomon. “Pretty child.”
“Pretty, indeed!” cried Walter. “I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol. Now I’m off.”
“That’s right,” said Solomon, greatly relieved.
“I say, Uncle Sol,” cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.
“Here he is again,” said Solomon.
“How does she look now?”
“Quite happy,” said Solomon.
“That’s famous! now I’m off.”
“I hope you are,” said Solomon to himself.
“I say, Uncle Sol,” cried Walter, reappearing at the door.
“Here he is again!” said Solomon.
“We met Mr. Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He bade me goodbye, but came behind us here—there’s an odd thing!—for when we reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away, like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. How does she look now, Uncle?”
“Pretty much the same as before, Wally,” replied Uncle Sol.
“That’s right. Now I am off!”
And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite for dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in her slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.
In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr. Dombey’s house at a pace seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his head out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient remonstrance with the driver. Arriving at his journey’s end, he leaped out, and breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed him straight into the library, where there was a great confusion of tongues, and where Mr. Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper, were all congregated together.
“Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,” said Walter, rushing up to him, “but I’m happy to say it’s all right, Sir. Miss Dombey’s found!”
The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes, panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr. Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.
“I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,” said Mr. Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in company with Miss Tox. “Let the servants know that no further steps are necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.” Here he looked majestically at Richards. “But how was she found? Who found her?”
“Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,” said Walter modestly, “at least I don’t know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of—”
“What do you mean, Sir,” interrupted Mr. Dombey, regarding the boy’s evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an instinctive dislike, “by not having exactly found my daughter, and by being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.”
It was quite out of Walter’s power to be coherent; but he rendered himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated why he had come alone.
“You hear this, girl?” said Mr. Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. “Take what is necessary, and return immediately with this
