offer any interruption to the current of his reflections. Mr. Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly whistling; among the stock; rattling weather-glasses, shaking compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones, looking through telescopes, endeavouring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions.
"Wal’r!" said the Captain at last. "I’ve got it."
"Have you, Captain Cuttle?" cried Walter, with great animation.
"Come this way, my lad," said the Captain. "The stock’s the security. I’m another. Your governor’s the man to advance money."
"Mr. Dombey!" faltered Walter.
The Captain nodded gravely. "Look at him," he said. "Look at Gills. If they was to sell off these things now, he’d die of it. You know he would. We mustn’t leave a stone unturned—and there’s a stone for you."
"A stone!—Mr. Dombey!"—faltered Walter.
"You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he’s there," said Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. "Quick!"
Walter felt he must not dispute the command—a glance at his uncle would have determined him if he had felt otherwise—and disappeared to execute it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr. Dombey was not there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.
"I tell you what, Wal’r!" said the Captain, who seemed to have prepared himself for this contingency in his absence. "We ’ll go to Brighton. I ’ll back you, my boy. I ’ll back you, Wal’r. We ’ll go to Brighton by the afternoon’s coach."
If the application must be made to Mr. Dombey at all, which was awful to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone and unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain Cuttle, to which he hardly thought Mr. Dombey would attach much weight. But as the Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was bent upon it, and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be trifled with by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint the least objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of Solomon Gills, and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, and the silver watch, to his pocket—with a view, as Walter thought, with horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr. Dombey—bore him off to the coach-office, without a minute’s delay, and repeatedly assured him, on the road, that he would stick by him to the last.
CHAPTER X.
CONTAINING THE SEQUEL OF THE MIDSHIPMAN’S DISASTER
Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across Princess’s Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication with Miss Tox’s maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that Dombey, Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make his acquaintance.
