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Rosey had arranged a little party to the theatre that evening, and the gallant Captain Goby had agreed to quit the delights of the Flag Club, in order to accompany the ladies. Neither of them knew what was happening in the City, or could account otherwise than by the common domestic causes, for Clive's gloomy despondency and his father's sad reserve. Clive had not been in the City on this day.
For he takes the same colour as the rocks and sands of his home. Amid the glinting lights and shadows of his rock-pool, with a background of sand, rock, and weed, this little fish is nearly invisible. Of course it is a dodge, and a useful one, to escape the eye of the enemy! Perhaps you will not think the Spotted Goby so clever at nest-building as the Stickleback.
He was certainly not a man of an ascetic life or a profound intellectual culture: but though poor he was known to be most honourable; though more than middle-aged he was cheerful, busy, and kindly; and though the youngsters called him Old Goby, he bore his years very gaily and handsomely, and I dare say numbers of ladies besides Mrs. Mackenzie thought him delightful.
He likes to use a "ready-made" house, whereas the Stickleback finds his own "bricks and mortar." In the pools of the shore there is no lack of houses to let, the empty homes of shell-fish are there in plenty. So the little Goby, when nesting time comes, hunts round for the empty shell of a Cockle lying with its hollow side to the sand. This shell is to be used as the roof for the nursery.
Marian had a struggle with herself but she could find nothing to reply to his cold phrases. And an hour or two afterwards Yule left the house without leave-taking. Soon after his departure there was a visitor's rat-tat at the door; it heralded Mrs Goby. In the interview which then took place Marian assisted her mother to bear the vigorous onslaughts of the haberdasher's wife.
Goby, who died apparently of a heart-disease not very clearly expressed in the symptoms, too daringly asked leave of her relatives to open the body, and thus gave an offence quickly spreading beyond Parley Street, where that lady had long resided on an income such as made this association of her body with the victims of Burke and Hare a flagrant insult to her memory.
You may wonder what kind of anchor they can use. It is a simple matter, however. The fins on the stomach are pressed together to form a little disc. If the Goby wishes to stay still in one place, it presses its sucker to a stone; then it cannot be washed away by the ever-moving water. In the Blenny family we find big, ugly fish as well as pretty little ones of strange shapes and lovely colours.
Goby, as respectable a woman as any in Parley Street, who had money in trust before her marriage a poor tale for a doctor, who if he was good for anything should know what was the matter with you before you died, and not want to pry into your inside after you were gone. If that was not reason, Mrs.
Goby fifty years old, unattached, and with dyed moustaches, was the affable comrade of the youngest member of his club: when absent, a friend wrote him the last riddle from the smoking-room; when present, his knowledge of horses, of cookery, wines, and cigars, and military history, rendered him a most acceptable companion.
Waterloo was not far off, to which the Indian officer paid several visits with Captain Goby for a guide; and many of Marlborough's battlefields were near, in which Goby certainly took but a minor interest; but on the other hand Clive beheld these with the greatest pleasure, and painted more than one dashing piece, in which Churchill and Eugene, Cutts and Cadogan, were the heroes; whose flowing periwigs, huge boots, and thundering Flemish chargers were, he thought, more novel and picturesque than the Duke's surtout, and the French Grenadiers' hairy caps, which so many English and French artists have portrayed.
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