“Matey,” said the Captain, in persuasive accents. “One of your Governors is named Carker.”
Mr. Perch admitted it; but gave him to understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more.
“Look’ee here, mate,” said the Captain in his ear; “my name’s Cap’en Cuttle.”
The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr. Perch eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs. Perch might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady’s hopes.
“If you’ll be so good as just report Cap’en Cuttle here, when you get a chance,” said the Captain, “I’ll wait.”
Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr. Perch’s bracket, and drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat which he jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene respect.
The Captain’s equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted.
“What name was it you said?” asked Mr. Perch, bending down over him as he sat on the bracket.
“Cap’en,” in a deep hoarse whisper.
“Yes,” said Mr. Perch, keeping time with his head.
“Cuttle.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and couldn’t help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive. “I’ll see if he’s disengaged now. I don’t know. Perhaps he may be for a minute.”
“Ay, ay, my lad, I won’t detain him longer than a minute,” said the Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within him. Perch, soon returning, said, “Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?”
Mr. Carker the Manager, standing on the hearthrug before the empty fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special encouragement.
“Mr. Carker?” said Captain Cuttle.
“I believe so,” said Mr. Carker, showing all his teeth.
The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant. “You see,” began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; “I’m a seafaring man myself, Mr. Carker, and Wal’r, as is on your books here, is almost a son of mine.”
“Walter Gay?” said Mr. Carker, showing all his teeth again.
“Wal’r Gay it is,” replied the Captain, “right!” The Captain’s manner expressed a warm approval of Mr. Carker’s quickness of perception. “I’m a intimate friend of his and his Uncle’s. Perhaps,” said the Captain, “you may have heard your head Governor mention my name?—Captain Cuttle.”
“No!” said Mr. Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before.
“Well,” resumed the Captain, “I’ve the pleasure of his acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with my young friend Wal’r, when—in short, when there was a little accommodation wanted.” The Captain nodded his head in a manner that was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. “You remember, I daresay?”
“I think,” said Mr. Carker, “I had the honour of arranging the business.”
“To be sure!” returned the Captain. “Right again! you had. Now I’ve took the liberty of coming here—”
“Won’t you sit down?” said Mr. Carker, smiling.
“Thank’ee,” returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. “A man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when he sits down. Won’t you take a cheer yourself?”
“No thank you,” said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force of winter habit, with his back against the chimneypiece, and looking down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. “You have taken the liberty, you were going to say—though it’s none—”
“Thank’ee kindly, my lad,” returned the Captain: “of coming here, on account of my friend Wal’r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain’t what I should altogether call a able seaman—not man of practice. Wal’r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he’s a little down by the head in one respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to put to you,” said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a kind of confidential growl, “in a friendly way, entirely between you and me, and for my own private reckoning, ’till your head Governor has wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this.—Is everything right and comfortable here, and is Wal’r out’ard bound with a pretty fair wind?”
“What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?” returned Carker, gathering up his skirts and settling himself in his position. “You are a practical man; what do you think?”
The acuteness and the significance of the Captain’s eye as he cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before referred to could describe.
“Come!” said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, “what do you say? Am I right or wrong?”
So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and incited by Mr. Carker’s smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as fair a condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his sentiments with the utmost elaboration.
“Right,” said Mr. Carker, “I have no doubt.”
“Out’ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,” cried Captain Cuttle.
Mr. Carker smiled assent.
“Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,” pursued the Captain.
Mr. Carker smiled assent again.
“Ay, ay!” said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. “I know’d how she headed, well enough; I told Wal’r so. Thank’ee, thank’ee.”
“Gay has brilliant prospects,” observed Mr. Carker, stretching his mouth wider yet: “all the world before him.”
“All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,” returned the delighted Captain.
At the word “wife” (which he had uttered without design),
