United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday. 'Has he not been here since? asked Susan. 'No, Miss, returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence. 'Perhaps Walter's Uncle has gone there, Susan, observed Florence, turning to her. 'To Captain Cuttle's, Miss? interposed Rob; 'no, he's not gone there, Miss.
Such, reduced into plain language, and condensed within a small compass, was the final result and substance of Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long time to arrive at this pass, and were, like some more public deliberations, very discursive and disorderly.
'I said it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house and it ain't his house and forbid it, that it ever should be his house for Cap'en Cuttle don't know how to keep a house and don't deserve to have a house it's my house and when I let the upper floor to Cap'en Cuttle, oh I do a thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!
Walter related to him what had happened; and the difficulty in which he felt respecting his Uncle, and the relief it would be to him if Captain Cuttle, in his kindness, would help him to smooth it away; Captain Cuttle's infinite consternation and astonishment at the prospect unfolded to him, gradually swallowing that gentleman up, until it left his face quite vacant, and the suit of blue, the glazed hat, and the hook, apparently without an owner.
'Captain Cuttle's at home, I know, said Walter with a conciliatory smile. 'Is he? replied the widow lady. 'In-deed! 'He has just been speaking to me, said Walter, in breathless explanation. 'Has he? replied the widow lady.
'A boy that can knock my door down, said Mrs MacStinger, contemptuously, 'can get over that, I should hope! But Walter, taking this as a permission to enter, and getting over it, Mrs MacStinger immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman's house was her castle or not; and whether she was to be broke in upon by 'raff. On these subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate, when Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle's room, and found that gentleman in ambush behind the door.
When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then you may know that Ned Cuttle's aground. Thereupon the Captain put his iron hook between his teeth, as if it were a hand; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the very concentration and sublimation of all philosophical reflection and grave inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in its various branches.
Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron's secret charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they could go to Captain Cuttle's house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of the absence of any tidings ofthe Son and Heir; and bring him, if they could, to comfort Uncle Sol.
In this fact we have a sufficient explanation of the rich store of fun and fancy of humour and pathos of anecdote and illustration upon which he draws ad libitum. Adopting Captain Cuttle's plan, he makes a note of everything within his reach, and the merest trifles incidents which to an ordinary mind would be Like a snow-flake on the river A moment seen, then lost for ever!
But the occasion was no common one, for Rob the Grinder had certainly never stood in the doorway of Captain Cuttle's room before, and in it he stood then, panting at the Captain, with a flushed and touzled air of Bed about him, that greatly heightened both his colour and expression. 'Holloa! roared the Captain. 'What's the matter?