Part 21 (2/2)

and the instrument-maker, turning briskly around, sees a cheerful-looking, merry boy fresh with running home in the rain; fair-faced, bright-eyed and curly-haired.

”Well, uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner ready?

I'm so hungry.”

”As to getting on,” said Solomon, good-naturedly, ”It would be odd if I couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than with you. As to dinner being ready, it's been waiting for you this half-hour. As to being hungry, I am!”

”Come along, then, uncle!” cried the boy, and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on a fried sole, with a prospect of steak to follow.

”Now,” said the old man eagerly, ”Let's hear something about the Firm.”

”Oh! there's not much to be told, uncle,” said the boy, plying his knife and fork. ”When Mr. Dombey came in, he walked up to my seat--I wish he wasn't so solemn and stiff, uncle--and told me you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the House accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me much.”

”You mean, I suppose.” observed the instrument-maker, ”that you didn't seem to like him much.”

”Well, uncle,” returned the boy laughing, ”perhaps so; I never thought of that.”

Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was done, he went down into a little cellar, and returned with a bottle covered with dust and dirt.

”Why, uncle Sol!” said the boy, ”What are you about? that's the wonderful Madeira--there's only one more bottle!”

Uncle Sol nodded his head, and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two gla.s.ses, and set the bottle and a third clean gla.s.s on the table.

”You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,” he said, ”When you come to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you--as I pray Heaven it may!--to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. My love to you!”

They clinked their gla.s.ses together, and were deep in conversation, when an addition to the little party made its appearance, in the shape of a gentleman with a hook instead of a hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with k.n.o.bs. He wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and such a very large s.h.i.+rt-collar that it looked like a small sail over his wide suit of blue. He was evidently the person for whom the spare winegla.s.s was intended, and evidently knew it; for having taken off his coat, and hung up his hard glazed hat, he brought a chair to where the clean gla.s.s was, and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as Captain, this visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateer's man, or all three perhaps; and was a very salt looking man indeed. His face brightened as he shook hands with uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and merely said: ”How goes it?”

”All well,” said Mr. Gills, pus.h.i.+ng the bottle towards the new-comer, Captain Cuttle, who thereupon proceeded to fill his gla.s.s, and the wonderful Madeira loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to a prodigous oration for Walter's benefit.

”Come,” cried Solomon Gills, ”we must finish the bottle.”

”Stand by!” said Captain Cuttle, filling his gla.s.s again. ”Give the boy some more.”

”Yes,” said Sol, ”a little more. We'll finish the bottle to the House,--Walter's house. Why, it may be his house one of these days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's daughter.”

”Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old, you will never depart from it,” interposed the Captain. ”Wal'r, overhaul the book, my lad!”

”And although Mr. Dombey hasn't a daughter--” Sol began.

”Yes, yes, he has, uncle,” said the boy, reddening and laughing. ”I know he has. Some of them were talking about it in the office to-day. And they do say that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's left unnoticed among the servants, while he thinks of no one but his son.

That's what they say. Of course I don't know.”

”He knows all about her already, you see,” said the instrument-maker.

”Nonsense, uncle,” cried the boy reddening again; ”how can I help hearing what they tell me?”

”The son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid,” added the old man, humoring the joke. ”Nevertheless, we'll drink to him,” pursued Sol.

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