Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People
Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for deep-laid
and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in men of
transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be endowed by
nature, had gone to Mr Dombey’s house on the eventful Sunday, winking
all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity, and had presented
himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before the eyes of
Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great concern, of the
impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy, sheered off again
confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small mark of his
solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the family in
general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope that they
would lay their heads well to the wind under existing circumstances,
and a friendly intimation that he would “look up again” to-morrow.
The Captain’s compliments were never heard of any more. The Captain’s
nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into the dust-bin
next morning; and the Captain’s sly arrangement, involved in one
catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, was crushed to
pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a mountain-forest, twigs and
bushes suffer with the trees, and all perish together.
When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long walk, and
its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by the tidings
he had to give them, and by the emotions naturally awakened in his
breast by the scene through which he had passed, to observe either that
his Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the intelligence the Captain
had undertaken to impart, or that the Captain made signals with his
hook, warning him to avoid the subject. Not that the Captain’s signals
were calculated to have proved very comprehensible, however attentively
observed; for, like those Chinese sages who are said in their
conferences to write certain learned words in the air that are wholly
impossible of pronunciation, the Captain made such waves and flourishes
as nobody without a previous knowledge of his mystery, would have been
at all likely to understand.
Captain Cuttle, however, becoming cognisant of what had happened,
relinquished these attempts, as he perceived the slender chance that
now existed of his being able to obtain a little easy chat with Mr
Dombey before the period of Walter’s departure. But in admitting to
himself, with a disappointed and crestfallen countenance, that Sol
Gills must be told, and that Walter must go—taking the case for the
present as he found it, and not having it enlightened or improved
beforehand by the knowing management of a friend—the Captain still felt
an unabated confidence that he, Ned Cuttle, was the man for Mr Dombey;
and that, to set Walter’s fortunes quite square, nothing was wanted but
that they two should come together. For the Captain never could forget
how well he and Mr Dombey had got on at Brighton; with what nicety each
of them had put in a word when it was wanted; how exactly they had
taken one another’s measure; nor how Ned Cuttle had pointed out that
resources in the first extremity, and had brought the interview to the
desired termination. On all these grounds the Captain soothed himself
with thinking that though Ned Cuttle was forced by the pressure of
events to “stand by” almost useless for the present, Ned would fetch up
with a wet sail in good time, and carry all before him.
Under the influence of this good-natured delusion, Captain Cuttle even
went so far as to revolve in his own bosom, while he sat looking at
Walter and listening with a tear on his shirt-collar to what he
related, whether it might not be at once genteel and politic to give Mr
Dombey a verbal invitation, whenever they should meet, to come and cut
his mutton in Brig Place on some day of his own naming, and enter on
the question of his young friend’s prospects over a social glass. But
the uncertain temper of Mrs MacStinger, and the possibility of her
setting up her rest in the passage during such an entertainment, and
there delivering some homily of an uncomplimentary nature, operated as
a check on the Captain’s hospitable thoughts, and rendered him timid of
giving them encouragement.
One fact was quite clear to the Captain, as Walter, sitting
thoughtfully over his untasted dinner, dwelt on all that had happened;
namely, that however Walter’s modesty might stand in the way of his
perceiving it himself, he was, as one might say, a member of Mr
Dombey’s family. He had been, in his own person, connected with the
incident he so pathetically described; he had been by name remembered
and commended in close association with it; and his fortunes must have
a particular interest in his employer’s eyes. If the Captain had any
lurking doubt whatever of his own conclusions, he had not the least
doubt that they were good conclusions for the peace of mind of the
Instrument-maker. Therefore he availed himself of so favourable a
moment for breaking the West Indian intelligence to his friend, as a
piece of extraordinary preferment; declaring that for his part he would
freely give a hundred thousand pounds (if he had it) for Walter’s gain
in the long-run, and that he had no doubt such an investment would
yield a handsome premium.
Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the communication, which fell
upon the little back-parlour like a thunderbolt, and tore up the hearth
savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before his dim
sight: hinted so mysteriously at Whittingtonian consequences; laid such
emphasis on what Walter had just now told them: and appealed to it so
confidently as a corroboration of his predictions, and a great advance
towards the realisation of the romantic legend of Lovely Peg: that he
bewildered the old man. Walter, for his part, feigned to be so full of
hope and ardour, and so sure of coming home again soon, and backed up
the Captain with such expressive shakings of his head and rubbings of
his hands, that Solomon, looking first at him then at Captain Cuttle,
began to think he ought to be transported with joy.
“But I’m behind the time, you understand,” he observed in apology,
passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright buttons on his
coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he were telling them
twice over: “and I would rather have my dear boy here. It’s an
old-fashioned notion, I daresay. He was always fond of the sea
He’s”—and he looked wistfully at Walter—“he’s glad to go.”
“Uncle Sol!” cried Walter, quickly, “if you say that, I won’t go. No,
Captain Cuttle, I won’t. If my Uncle thinks I could be glad to leave
him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the Islands in the
West Indies, that’s enough. I’m a fixture.”
“Wal”r, my lad,” said the Captain. “Steady! Sol Gills, take an
observation of your nevy.”
Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain’s hook, the
old man looked at Walter.
“Here is a certain craft,” said the Captain, with a magnificent sense
of the allegory into which he was soaring, “a-going to put out on a
certain voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is it The
Gay? or,” said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to say,
observe the point of this, “is it The Gills?”
“Ned,” said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking his arm
tenderly through his, “I know. I know. Of course I know that Wally
considers me more than himself always. That’s in my mind. When I say he
is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned and you too,
Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I’m afraid my
being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is it really
good fortune for him, do you tell me, now?” said the old man, looking
anxiously from one to the other. “Really and truly? Is it? I can
reconcile myself to almost anything that advances Wally, but I won’t
have Wally putting himself at any disadvantage for me, or keeping
anything from me. You, Ned Cuttle!” said the old man, fastening on the
Captain, to the manifest confusion of that diplomatist; “are you
dealing plainly by your old friend? Speak out, Ned Cuttle. Is there
anything behind? Ought he to go? How do you know it first, and why?”
As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck in with
infinite effect, to the Captain’s relief; and between them they
tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the
project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain of
separation, was distinctly clear to his mind.
He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next day,
Walter received from Mr Carker the Manager, the necessary credentials
for his passage and outfit, together with the information that the Son
and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or two afterwards
at latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter purposely enhanced
as much as possible: the old man lost what little self-possession he
ever had; and so the time of departure drew on rapidly.
The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all that
passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the time
still tending on towards his going away, without any occasion offering
itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better understanding
of his position. It was after much consideration of this fact, and much
pondering over such an unfortunate combination of circumstances, that a
bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he made a call on Mr
Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land really lay!
Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a moment
of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place after
breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his
conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by
what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it
would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker
carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman’s
character, and discovered that they got on well together or the
reverse.
Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew
was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks and
mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He
purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was
going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his
button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and
with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon the
offices of Dombey and Son.
After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to
collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its
good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch.
“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 hearth-rug 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 chimney-piece, 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), the Captain
stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on the top of
the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at his always
smiling friend.
“I’d bet a gill of old Jamaica,” said the Captain, eyeing him
attentively, “that I know what you’re a smiling at.”
Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.
“It goes no farther?” said the Captain, making a poke at the door with
the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.
“Not an inch,” said Mr Carker.
“You’re thinking of a capital F perhaps?” said the Captain.
Mr Carker didn’t deny it.
“Anything about a L,” said the Captain, “or a O?”
Mr Carker still smiled.
“Am I right, again?” inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the
scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.
Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain
Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that
they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid
his course that way all along. “He know’d her first,” said the Captain,
with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, “in an
uncommon manner—you remember his finding her in the street when she was
a’most a babby—he has liked her ever since, and she him, as much as two
youngsters can. We’ve always said, Sol Gills and me, that they was cut
out for each other.”
A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death’s-head, could not have shown
the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at this
period of their interview.
“There’s a general indraught that way,” observed the happy Captain.
“Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being
present t’other day!”
“Most favourable to his hopes,” said Mr Carker.
“Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!” pursued the
Captain. “Why what can cut him adrift now?”
“Nothing,” replied Mr Carker.
“You’re right again,” returned the Captain, giving his hand another
squeeze. “Nothing it is. So! steady! There’s a son gone: pretty little
creetur. Ain’t there?”
“Yes, there’s a son gone,” said the acquiescent Carker.
“Pass the word, and there’s another ready for you,” quoth the Captain.
“Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal”r! Wal”r, as is
already in your business! And”—said the Captain, rising gradually to a
quotation he was preparing for a final burst, “who—comes from Sol
Gills’s daily, to your business, and your buzzums.”
The Captain’s complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow,
on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed
by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him when
he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; his
great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a masterpiece, and
his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the same cause.
“Am I right?” said the Captain.
“Captain Cuttle,” said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a
moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the
whole of himself at once, “your views in reference to Walter Gay are
thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together in
confidence.
“Honour!” interposed the Captain. “Not a word.”
“To him or anyone?” pursued the Manager.
Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.
“But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance—and guidance, of
course,” repeated Mr Carker, “with a view to your future proceedings.”
“Thank’ee kindly, I am sure,” said the Captain, listening with great
attention.
“I have no hesitation in saying, that’s the fact. You have hit the
probabilities exactly.”
“And with regard to your head Governor,” said the Captain, “why an
interview had better come about nat’ral between us. There’s time
enough.”
Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, “Time enough.” Not
articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming them
with his tongue and lips.
“And as I know—it’s what I always said—that Wal”r’s in a way to make
his fortune,” said the Captain.
“To make his fortune,” Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.
“And as Wal”r’s going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in his
day’s work, and a part of his general expectations here,” said the
Captain.
“Of his general expectations here,” assented Mr Carker, dumbly as
before.
“Why, so long as I know that,” pursued the Captain, “there’s no hurry,
and my mind’s at ease.
Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner, Captain
Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one of the
most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey might
improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness, therefore, the
Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not unlike an old block
in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his smoother flesh a
proof impression of the chinks and crevices with which the Captain’s
palm was liberally tattooed.
“Farewell!” said the Captain. “I ain’t a man of many words, but I take
it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You’ll excuse
me if I’ve been at all intruding, will you?” said the Captain.
“Not at all,” returned the other.
“Thank’ee. My berth ain’t very roomy,” said the Captain, turning back
again, “but it’s tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near
Brig Place, number nine, at any time—will you make a note of it?—and
would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the person at the
door, I should be proud to see you.
With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said “Good day!” and
walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining against
the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose
false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and
very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his
white linen and his smooth face; there was something desperately
cat-like.
The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification
that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. “Stand by, Ned!”
said the Captain to himself. “You’ve done a little business for the
youngsters today, my lad!”
In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could
not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he
thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who
had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt
disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be
happy to bestow the same upon him.
Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the astonishment
of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view, and took a
general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project in which
his young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room excited his
especial admiration; but, that he might not appear too particular, he
limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a graceful
recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of politeness and
patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly joined by Mr
Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and fulfilled his
pledge—hastily, for Perch’s time was precious.
“I’ll give you for a toast,” said the Captain, “Wal”r!”
“Who?” submitted Mr Perch.
“Wal”r!” repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.
Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there was
once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much astonished
at the Captain’s coming into the City to propose a poet; indeed, if he
had proposed to put a poet’s statue up—say Shakespeare’s for example—in
a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly have done a greater outrage to Mr
Perch’s experience. On the whole, he was such a mysterious and
incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch decided not to mention him to
Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise to any disagreeable
consequences.
Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively sense
upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters, remained
all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that Walter
attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic reliefs of
himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their innocent deception
upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have betrayed himself before
night. As it was, however, he kept his own secret; and went home late
from the Instrument-maker’s house, wearing the glazed hat so much on
one side, and carrying such a beaming expression in his eyes, that Mrs
MacStinger (who might have been brought up at Doctor Blimber’s, she was
such a Roman matron) fortified herself, at the first glimpse of him,
behind the open street door, and refused to come out to the
contemplation of her blessed infants, until he was securely lodged in
his own room.