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I instantly sung out; when the boatswain, who was on deck, brought a lantern; and there, to the surprise of all of us, a dozen or more cuttle fish were found, which had sprung over the weather bulwark. "Well," exclaimed Mr Tarbox, "I never did see such a thing as this before." Mr Hooker, however, said that he had heard of it, as the creatures can spring an immense distance.

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?

Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the little hack parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed upstairs, so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns, he looked up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer watch than would have fallen to his lot on board the ship.

At last she opened her eyes, and spoke: "Captain Cuttle! Is it you? Is Walter's uncle here?" "Here, Pretty?" returned the captain. "He a'n't been here this many a long day. He a'n't been heer'd on since he sheered off arter poor Wal'r. But," said the captain, as a quotation, "Though lost to sight, to memory dear, and England, home, and beauty!" "Do you live here?" asked Florence.

But what I feel, Captain Cuttle, is that we have been a little mistaken all along, and that, so far as any improvement in my prospects is concerned, I am no better off now than I was when I first entered Dombey's House perhaps a little worse, for the House may have been kindly inclined towards me then, and it certainly is not now.

If there were any Hope alive that evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it certainly kept house, and wasn't out of doors; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent manner, went in to look for it. Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated in his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was not there, though the fire was bright.

The dinner being at length quite ready, Captain Cuttle dished and served it up, with no less dexterity than he had cooked it. He then dressed for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. That done, he wheeled the table close against Florence on the sofa, said grace, unscrewed his hook, screwed his fork into its place, and did the honours of the table.

But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs MacStinger, its terrors were at their height. 'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle! said Mrs MacStinger, making her chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of her sex, might be described as her fist.

'And it would go! said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go! For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the dial. 'But he's chockful of science, he observed, waving his hook towards the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here!

I bear no malice now, Cap'en Cuttle you needn't fear that I'm a going to cast any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in another spirit. Here Mrs MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up, and inflating her bosom with a long breath, said, in allusion to the victim, 'My 'usband, Cap'en Cuttle!