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 double-cased 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 thoughts of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favour of stratagem.
"Wal’r," said the Captain, with a timid wink, "go afore, my lad. Sing out, 'good-bye, 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’s 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 parlour, 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
