“Yes, Captain Gills,” says Mr. Toots, “and I’m glad of it. The oftener we can repeat that most extraordinary woman, my opinion is, the better!”
“Stand by!” says the Captain, turning to the old case-bottle with no throat—for it is evening, and the Midshipman’s usual moderate provision of pipes and glasses is on the board. “Here’s to her, and may she have ever so many more!”
“Thank’ee, Captain Gills,” says the delighted Mr. Toots. “I echo the sentiment. If you’ll allow me, as my so doing cannot be unpleasant to anybody, under the circumstances, I think I’ll take a pipe.”
Mr. Toots begins to smoke, accordingly, and in the openness of his heart is very loquacious.
“Of all the remarkable instances that that delightful woman has given of her excellent sense, Captain Gills and Mr. Sols,” said Mr. Toots, “I think none is more remarkable than the perfection with which she has understood my devotion to Miss Dombey.”
Both his auditors assent.
“Because you know,” says Mr. Toots, “I have never changed my sentiments towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the same bright vision to me, at present, that she was before I made Walters’s acquaintance. When Mrs. Toots and myself first began to talk of—in short, of the tender passion, you know, Captain Gills.”
“Ay, ay, my lad,” says the Captain, “as makes us all slue round—for which you’ll overhaul the book—”
“I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills,” says Mr. Toots, with great earnestness; “when we first began to mention such subjects, I explained that I was what you may call a Blighted Flower, you know.”
The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no flower as blows, is like the rose.
“But Lord bless me,” pursues Mr. Toots, “she was as entirely conscious of the state of my feelings as I was myself. There was nothing I could tell her. She was the only person who could have stood between me and the silent Tomb, and she did it, in a manner to command my everlasting admiration. She knows that there’s nobody in the world I look up to, as I do to Miss Dombey. She knows that there’s nothing on earth I wouldn’t do for Miss Dombey. She knows that I consider Miss Dombey the most beautiful, the most amiable, the most angelic of her sex. What is her observation upon that? The perfection of sense. ‘My dear, you’re right. I think so too.’ ”
“And so do I!” says the Captain.
“So do I,” says Sol Gills.
“Then,” resumes Mr. Toots, after some contemplative pulling at his pipe, during which his visage has expressed the most contented reflection, “what an observant woman my wife is! What sagacity she possesses! What remarks she makes! It was only last night, when we were sitting in the enjoyment of connubial bliss—which, upon my word and honour, is a feeble term to express my feelings in the society of my wife—that she said how remarkable it was to consider the present position of our friend Walters. ‘Here,’ observes my wife, ‘he is, released from seagoing, after that first long voyage with his young bride’—as you know he was, Mr. Sols.”
“Quite true,” says the old Instrument-maker, rubbing his hands.
“ ‘Here he is,’ says my wife, ‘released from that, immediately; appointed by the same establishment to a post of great trust and confidence at home; showing himself again worthy; mounting up the ladder with the greatest expedition; beloved by everybody; assisted by his uncle at the very best possible time of his fortunes’—which I think is the case, Mr. Sols? My wife is always correct.”
“Why yes, yes—some of our lost ships, freighted with gold, have come home, truly,” returns old Sol, laughing. “Small craft, Mr. Toots, but serviceable to my boy!”
“Exactly so,” says Mr. Toots. “You’ll never find my wife wrong. ‘Here he is,’ says that most remarkable woman, ‘so situated—and what follows? What follows?’ observed Mrs. Toots. Now pray remark, Captain Gills, and Mr. Sols, the depth of my wife’s penetration. ‘Why that, under the very eye of Mr. Dombey, there is a foundation going on, upon which a—an Edifice;’ that was Mrs. Toots’s word,” says Mr. Toots exultingly, “ ‘is gradually rising, perhaps to equal, perhaps excel, that of which he was once the head, and the small beginnings of which (a common fault, but a bad one, Mrs. Toots said) escaped his memory. Thus,’ said my wife, ‘from his daughter, after all, another Dombey and Son will ascend’—no ‘rise’; that was Mrs. Toots’s word—‘triumphant!’ ”
Mr. Toots, with the assistance of his pipe—which he is extremely glad to devote to oratorical purposes, as its proper use affects him with a very uncomfortable sensation—does such grand justice to this prophetic sentence of his wife’s, that the Captain, throwing away his glazed hat in a state of the greatest excitement, cries:
“Sol Gills, you man of science and my ould pardner, what did I tell Wal’r to overhaul on that there night when he first took to business? Was it this here quotation, ‘Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old you will never depart from it.’ Was it them words, Sol Gills?”
“It certainly was, Ned,” replied the old Instrument-maker. “I remember well.”
“Then I tell you what,” says the Captain, leaning back in his chair, and composing his chest for a prodigious roar. “I’ll give you Lovely Peg right through; and stand by, both on you, for the chorus!”
Buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did, in its time; and dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles.
Autumn days are shining, and on the sea-beach there are often a young lady, and a white-haired gentleman. With them, or near them, are two children: boy and girl. And an old dog is generally in their company.
The white-haired gentleman walks with the little boy, talks with him, helps him in his play, attends upon him, watches him as if he were the object of his life. If he be thoughtful, the white-haired gentleman is thoughtful too; and sometimes
