"How's Gills?" inquired the captain.

Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath, and lost his spirits or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given him-looked at his questioner for a moment, said "Oh, Captain Cuttle!" and burst into tears.

No words can describe the captain's consternation at this sight. Mrs. MacStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the fork and would have dropped the knife too if he could- and sat gazing at the boy, as if he expected to hear next moment that a gulf had opened in the city, which had swallowed up his old friend, coffee-colored suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all.

But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain Cuttle, after a moment's reflection, started up into full activity. He emptied out of a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard, his whole stock of ready money (amounting to thirteen pounds and half a crown), which he transferred to one of the pockets of his square blue coat; further enriched that repository with the contents of his plate chest, consisting of two withered atomies of teaspoons, and an obsolete pair of knock-knee'd sugar-tongs; pulled up his immense doublecased silver watch from the depths in which it reposed, to assure himself that that valuable was sound and whole; re-attached the hook to his right wrist; and seizing the stick covered over with knobs, bade Walter come along.

Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement, that Mrs. MacStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuttle hesitated at last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some thought of

escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favor of stratagem.

66

Wal'r," said the captain, with a timid wink, "go afore, my lad. Sing out, good-by, Captain Cuttle,' when you're in the passage, and shut the door. Then wait at the corner of the street till you see me."

These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of the enemy tactics, for when Walter got down-stairs, Mrs. MacStinger glided out of the little back-kitchen, like an avenging spirit. But not gliding out upon the captain, as she had expected, she merely made a further allusion to the knocker, and glided in again.

Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuttle could summon courage to attempt his escape; for Walter waited so long at the street-corner, looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of the hard glazed hat. At length the captain burst out of the door with the suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great pace, and never once looking over his shoulder, pretended as soon as they were well out of the street, to whistle a tune.

"Uncle much hove down, Wal'r?" inquired the captain, as they were walking along.

"I am afraid so. If you had seen him this morning, you would never have forgotten it."

"Walk fast, Wal'r, my lad," returned the captain, mending his pace; "and walk the same all the days of your life. Overhaul the catechism for that advice, and keep it!"

The captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills, mingled perhaps with some reflections on

his late escape from Mrs. MacStinger, to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's moral improvement. They interchanged no other word until they arrived at old Sol's door, where the unfortunate wooden midshipman, with his instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty.

"Gills!" said the captain, hurrying into the back-parlor, and taking him by the hand quite tenderly. "Lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it. All you've got to do," said the captain, with the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one of the most precious practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom, "is to lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it!"

Old Sol returned the pressure of his hand, and thanked him.

Captain Cuttle, then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of the occasion, put down upon the table the two tea-spoons and the sugar-tongs, the silver watch, and the ready money; and asked Mr. Brogley, the broker, what the damage was.

"Come! What do you make of it?" said Captain Cuttle.

"Why, Lord help you?" returned the broker; "you don't suppose that property's of any use, do you?" "Why not?" inquired the captain.

66

Why? The amount's three hundred and seventy, odd," replied the broker.

"Never mind," returned the captain, though he was evidently dismayed by the figures: "all's fish that comes to your net, I suppose?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Brogley. "But sprats a'n't whales, you know.”

The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the captain. He ruminated for a minute; eying the broker, meanwhile, as a deep genius: and then called the instrument-maker aside.

"Gills," said Captain Cuttle, "what's the bearings of this business? Who's the creditor?"

"Hush!" returned the old man.

"Come away. Don't speak before Wally. It's a matter of security for Wally's father an old bond. I've paid a good deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can't do more just now. I've foreseen it, but I couldn't help it. Not a word before Wally, for all the world."

"You've got some money, haven't you?" whispered the captain.

oh yes

"Yes, yes I've got some," returned old Sol, first putting his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig between them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it; "but I the little I have got, isn't convertible, Ned; it can't be got at. I have been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I'm old-fashioned, and behind the time. It's here and there, and and, in short, it's as good as nowhere," said the old man, looking in bewilderment about him.

He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding his money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the captain followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might remember some few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in the cellar. But Solomon Gills knew better than that. "I'm behind the time altogether, my dear Ned," said Sol, in resigned despair, "a long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind it. The stock had better be

sold

it's worth more than this debt- and I had better

go and die somewhere on the balance. I haven't any energy left. I don't understand things. This had better be the end of it. Let 'em sell the stock and take him down," said the old man, pointing feebly to the wooden midshipman," and let us both be broken up together."

"And what d'ye mean to do with Wal'r?" said the captain. "There, there! Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o' this. If I warn't a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I hadn't need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the wind," said the captain, again administering that unanswerable piece of consolation, "and you're all right!"

Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against the back-parlor fireplace instead.

Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time, cogitating profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear so heavily on his nose, like clouds settling on a mountain, that Walter was afraid to offer any interruption to the current of his reflections. Mr. Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly whistling, among the stock; rattling weather glasses, shaking compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones, looking through telescopes, endeavoring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions.

"Wal'r!" said the captain at last. "I've got it." "Have you, Captain Cuttle?" cried Walter, with great animation.