Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/735

622 look at it from the other side of the way; and invariably says, on these occasions, "Ed’ard Cuttle, my lad, if your mother could ha’ know’d as you would ever be a man o’ science, the good old creetur would ha’ been took aback in-deed!"

But here is Mr. Toots descending on the Midshipman with violent rapidity, and Mr. Toots’s face is very red as he bursts into the little parlour.

"Captain Gills," says Mr. Toots, "and Mr. Sols, I am happy to inform you that Mrs. Toots has had an increase to her family."

"And it does her credit!" cries the Captain.

"I give you joy, Mr. Toots!" says old Sol.

"Thank’ee," chuckles Mr. Toots, "I’m very much obliged to you. I knew that you’d be glad to hear, and so I came down myself. We ’re positively getting on, you know. There’s Florence, and Susan, and now here’s another little stranger."

"A female stranger?" inquires the Captain.

"Yes, Captain Gills," says Mr. Toots, "and I’m glad of it. The oftener we can repeat that most extraordinary woman, my opinion is, the better!"

"Stand by!" says the Captain, turning to the old case-bottle with no throat—for it is evening, and the Midshipman’s usual moderate provision of pipes and glasses is on the board. "Here’s to her, and may she have ever so many more!"

"Thank’ee, Captain Gills," says the delighted Mr. Toots. "I echo the sentiment. If you ’ll allow me, as my so doing cannot be unpleasant to anybody, under the circumstances, I think I ’ll take a pipe."

Mr. Toots begins to smoke, accordingly, and in the openness of his heart is very loquacious.

"Of all the remarkable instances that that delightful woman has given of her excellent sense, Captain Gills and Mr. Sols," said Mr. Toots, "I think none is more remarkable than the perfection with which she has understood my devotion to Miss Dombey."

Both his auditors assent.

"Because you know," says Mr. Toots, "I have never changed my sentiments towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the same bright vision to me, at present, that she was before I made Walters’s acquaintance. When Mrs. Toots and myself first began to talk of—in short, of the tender passion, you know, Captain Gills."

"Aye aye, my lad," says the Captain, "as makes us all slue round—for which you ’ll overhaul the book—"

"I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills,"’ says Mr. Toots, with great earnestness; "when we first began to mention such subjects, I explained that I was what you may call a Blighted flower, you know."

The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no flower as blows, is like the rose.

"But Lord bless me," pursues Mr. Toots, "she was as entirely conscious of the state of my feelings as I was myself. There was nothing I could tell her. She was the only person who could have stood between me and the silent Tomb, and she did it, in a manner to command my everlasting admiration. She knows that there’s nobody in the world I look up to, as I do to Miss Dombey. Knows that there’s nothing on