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Rh more particularly mentioning what—and further, that he, the Beadle, would keep his eye upon him.

"Captain Cuttle," said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from their labours at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street; it being still early in the morning; "nothing at all of Uncle Sol, in all that time!"

"Nothing at all, my lad," replied the Captain, shaking his head.

"Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man," said Walter; "yet never write to you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you gave me," taking the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in the presence of the enlightened Bunsby, "that if you never hear from him before opening it, you may believe him dead. Heaven forbid! But you would have heard of him, even if he were dead! Some one would have written, surely, by his desire, if he could not; and have said, 'on such a day, there died in my house,' or 'under my care,' or so forth, 'Mr Solomon Gills of London, who left this last remembrance and this last request to you.'"

The Captain, who had never climbed to such a clear height of probability before, was greatly impressed by the wide prospect it opened, and answered, with a thoughtful shake of his head, "Well said, my lad; wery well said."

"I have been thinking of this, or, at least," said Walter, colouring, "I have been thinking of one thing and another, all through a sleepless night, and I cannot believe, Captain Cuttle, but that my Uncle Sol (Lord bless him!) is alive, and will return. I don’t so much wonder at his going away, because, leaving out of consideration that spice of the marvellous which was always in his character, and his great affection for me, before which every other consideration of his life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I who had the best of fathers in him,"—Walter’s voice was indistinct and husky here, and he looked away, along the street,—"leaving that out of consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the sea-shore where any tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create intelligence. I think I should do such a thing myself, as soon as another, or sooner than many, perhaps. But why my Uncle shouldn’t write to you, when he so clearly intended to do so, or how he should die abroad, and you not know it through some other hand, I cannot make out."

Captain Cuttle observed, with a shake of his head, that Jack Bunsby himself hadn’t made it out, and that he was a man as could give a pretty taut opinion too.

"If my Uncle had been a heedless young man, likely to be entrapped by jovial company to some drinking-place, where he was to be got rid of for the sake of what money he might have about him," said Walter; "or if he had been a reckless sailor, going ashore with two or three months’ pay in his pocket, I could understand his disappearing, and leaving no trace behind. But, being what he was—and is, I hope—I can’t believe it."

"Wal’r, my lad," inquired the Captain, wistfully eyeing him as he pondered and pondered, "what do you make of it, then?"