Chapter 17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for
deep-laid and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in
men of transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be
endowed by nature, had gone to Mr Dombey's house on the eventful
Sunday, winking all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity,
and had presented himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks
before the eyes of Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his
great concern, of the impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his
delicacy, sheered off again confounded; merely handing in the nosegay
as a small mark of his solicitude, and leaving his respectful
compliments for the family in general, which he accompanied with an
expression of his hope that they would lay their heads well to the
wind under existing circumstances, and a friendly intimation that he
would 'look up again' to-morrow.

The Captain's compliments were never heard of any more. The
Captain's nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into
the dust-bin next morning; and the Captain's sly arrangement,
involved in one catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs,
was crushed to pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a
mountain-forest, twigs and bushes suffer with the trees, and all
perish together.

When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long
walk, and its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by
the tidings he had to give them, and by the emotions naturally
awakened in his breast by the scene through which he had passed, to
observe either that his Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the
intelligence the Captain had undertaken to impart, or that the
Captain made signals with his hook, warning him to avoid the subject.
Not that the Captain's signals were calculated to have proved very
comprehensible, however attentively observed; for, like those Chinese
sages who are said in their conferences to write certain learned
words in the air that are wholly impossible of pronunciation, the
Captain made such waves and flourishes as nobody without a previous
knowledge of his mystery, would have been at all likely to
understand.

Captain Cuttle, however, becoming cognisant of what had
happened, relinquished these attempts, as he perceived the slender
chance that now existed of his being able to obtain a little easy
chat with Mr Dombey before the period of Walter's departure. But in
admitting to himself, with a disappointed and crestfallen
countenance, that Sol Gills must be told, and that Walter must go -
taking the case for the present as he found it, and not having it
enlightened or improved beforehand by the knowing management of a
friend - the Captain still felt an unabated confidence that he, Ned
Cuttle, was the man for Mr Dombey; and that, to set Walter's fortunes
quite square, nothing was wanted but that they two should come
together. For the Captain never could forget how well he and Mr
Dombey had got on at Brighton; with what nicety each of them had put
in a word when it was wanted; how exactly they had taken one
another's measure; nor how Ned Cuttle had pointed out that resources
in the first extremity, and had brought the interview to the desired
termination. On all these grounds the Captain soothed himself with
thinking that though Ned Cuttle was forced by the pressure of events
to 'stand by' almost useless for the present, Ned would fetch up with
a wet sail in good time, and carry all before him.

Under the influence of this good-natured delusion, Captain
Cuttle even went so far as to revolve in his own bosom, while he sat
looking at Walter and listening with a tear on his shirt-collar to
what he related, whether it might not be at once genteel and politic
to give Mr Dombey a verbal invitation, whenever they should meet, to
come and cut his mutton in Brig Place on some day of his own naming,
and enter on the question of his young friend's prospects over a
social glass. But the uncertain temper of Mrs MacStinger, and the
possibility of her setting up her rest in the passage during such an
entertainment, and there delivering some homily of an uncomplimentary
nature, operated as a check on the Captain's hospitable thoughts, and
rendered him timid of giving them encouragement.

One fact was quite clear to the Captain, as Walter, sitting
thoughtfully over his untasted dinner, dwelt on all that had
happened; namely, that however Walter's modesty might stand in the
way of his perceiving it himself, he was, as one might say, a member
of Mr Dombey's family. He had been, in his own person, connected with
the incident he so pathetically described; he had been by name
remembered and commended in close association with it; and his
fortunes must have a particular interest in his employer's eyes. If
the Captain had any lurking doubt whatever of his own conclusions, he
had not the least doubt that they were good conclusions for the peace
of mind of the Instrument-maker. Therefore he availed himself of so
favourable a moment for breaking the West Indian intelligence to his
friend, as a piece of extraordinary preferment; declaring that for
his part he would freely give a hundred thousand pounds (if he had
it) for Walter's gain in the long-run, and that he had no doubt such
an investment would yield a handsome premium.

Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the communication, which
fell upon the little back-parlour like a thunderbolt, and tore up the
hearth savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before
his dim sight: hinted so mysteriously at 'Whittingtonian
consequences; laid such emphasis on what Walter had just now told
them: and appealed to it so confidently as a corroboration of his
predictions, and a great advance towards the realisation of the
romantic legend of Lovely Peg: that he bewildered the old man.
Walter, for his part, feigned to be so full of hope and ardour, and
so sure of coming home again soon, and backed up the Captain with
such expressive shakings of his head and rubbings of his hands, that
Solomon, looking first at him then at Captain Cuttle, began to think
he ought to be transported with joy.

'But I'm behind the time, you understand,' he observed in
apology, passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright
buttons on his coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he
were telling them twice over: 'and I would rather have my dear boy
here. It's an old-fashioned notion, I daresay. He was always fond of
the sea He's' - and he looked wistfully at Walter - 'he's glad to
go.'

'Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, quickly, 'if you say that, I won't
go. No, Captain Cuttle, I won't. If my Uncle thinks I could be glad
to leave him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the
Islands in the West Indies, that's enough. I'm a fixture.'

'Wal'r, my lad,' said the Captain. 'Steady! Sol Gills, take an
observation of your nevy.

Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain's
hook, the old man looked at Walter.

'Here is a certain craft,' said the Captain, with a magnificent
sense of the allegory into which he was soaring, 'a-going to put out
on a certain voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is
it The Gay? or,' said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to
say, observe the point of this, 'is it The Gills?'

'Ned,' said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking
his arm tenderly through his, 'I know. I know. Of course I know that
Wally considers me more than himself always. That's in my mind. When
I say he is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned and
you too, Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I'm
afraid my being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is
it really good fortune for him, do you tell me, now?' said the old
man, looking anxiously from one to the other. 'Really and truly? Is
it? I can reconcile myself to almost anything that advances Wally,
but I won't have Wally putting himself at any disadvantage for me, or
keeping anything from me. You, Ned Cuttle!' said the old man,
fastening on the Captain, to the manifest confusion of that
diplomatist; 'are you dealing plainly by your old friend? Speak out,
Ned Cuttle. Is there anything behind? Ought he to go? How do you know
it first, and why?'

As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck
in with infinite effect, to the Captain's relief; and between them
they tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the
project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain
of separation, was distinctly clear to his mind.

He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next
day, Walter received from Mr Carker the Manager, the necessary
credentials for his passage and outfit, together with the information
that the Son and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or
two afterwards at latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter
purposely enhanced as much as possible: the old man lost what little
selfpossession he ever had; and so the time of departure drew on
rapidly.

The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with
all that passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found
the time still tending on towards his going away, without any
occasion offering itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a
better understanding of his position. It was after much consideration
of this fact, and much pondering over such an unfortunate combination
of circumstances, that a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose
he made a call on Mr Carker, and tried to find out from him how the
land really lay!

Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a
moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place
after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his
conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by
what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it
would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker
carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's
character, and discovered that they got on well together or the
reverse.

Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he
knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his
ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second
expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present
occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small
sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of
the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat,
bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son.

After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by,
to collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest
its good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr
Perch.

'Matey,' said the Captain, in persuasive accents. 'One of your
Governors is named Carker.' Mr Perch admitted it; but gave him to
understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were
engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more.

'Look'ee here, mate,' said the Captain in his ear; 'my name's
Cap'en Cuttle.'

The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr Perch
eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the
sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs Perch
might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady's hopes.

'If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle here, when
you get a chance,' said the Captain, 'I'll wait.'

Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr Perch's bracket,
and drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat
which he jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for
nothing human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and
appeared refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook,
and sat looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a
serene respect.

The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was
altogether so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was
daunted.

'What name was it you said?' asked Mr Perch, bending down over
him as he sat on the bracket.

'Cap'en,' in a deep hoarse whisper.

'Yes,' said Mr Perch, keeping time with his head.

'Cuttle.'

'Oh!' said Mr Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and
couldn't help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive.
'I'll see if he's disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may be for
a minute.'

'Ay, ay, my lad, I won't detain him longer than a minute,' said
the Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt
within him. Perch, soon returning, said, 'Will Captain Cuttle walk
this way?'

Mr Carker the Manager, standing on the hearth-rug before the
empty fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of
brown paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very
special encouragement.

'Mr Carker?' said Captain Cuttle.

'I believe so,' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth.

The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked
pleasant. 'You see,' began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round
the little room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar
permitted; 'I'm a seafaring man myself, Mr Carker, and Wal'r, as is
on your books here, is almost a son of mine.'

'Walter Gay?' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth again.

'Wal'r Gay it is,' replied the Captain, 'right!' The Captain's
manner expressed a warm approval of Mr Carker's quickness of
perception. 'I'm a intimate friend of his and his Uncle's. Perhaps,'
said the Captain, 'you may have heard your head Governor mention my
name? - Captain Cuttle.'

'No!' said Mr Carker, with a still wider demonstration than
before.

'Well,' resumed the Captain, 'I've the pleasure of his
acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with
my young friend Wal'r, when - in short, when there was a little
accommodation wanted.' The Captain nodded his head in a manner that
was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. 'You remember, I
daresay?'

'I think,' said Mr Carker, 'I had the honour of arranging the
business.'

'To be sure!' returned the Captain. 'Right again! you had. Now
I've took the liberty of coming here -

'Won't you sit down?' said Mr Carker, smiling.

'Thank'ee,' returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer.
'A man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation,
when he sits down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?'

'No thank you,' said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the
force of winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and
looking down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum.
'You have taken the liberty, you were going to say - though it's none
- '

'Thank'ee kindly, my lad,' returned the Captain: 'of coming
here, on account of my friend Wal'r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man
of science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he
ain't what I should altogether call a able seaman - not man of
practice. Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he's a little
down by the head in one respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I
should wish to put to you,' said the Captain, lowering his voice, and
speaking in a kind of confidential growl, 'in a friendly way,
entirely between you and me, and for my own private reckoning, 'till
your head Governor has wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of
him, is this - Is everything right and comfortable here, and is Wal'r
out'ard bound with a pretty fair wind?'

'What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?' returned Carker,
gathering up his skirts and settling himself in his position. 'You
are a practical man; what do you think?'

The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he
cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words
before referred to could describe.

'Come!' said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, 'what do you
say? Am I right or wrong?'

So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and
incited by Mr Carker's smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as
fair a condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his
sentiments with the utmost elaboration.

'Right,' said Mr Carker, 'I have no doubt.'

'Out'ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,' cried Captain
Cuttle.

Mr Carker smiled assent.

'Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,' pursued the Captain.

Mr Carker smiled assent again.

'Ay, ay!' said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. 'I
know'd how she headed, well enough; I told Wal'r so. Thank'ee,
thank'ee.'

'Gay has brilliant prospects,' observed Mr Carker, stretching
his mouth wider yet: 'all the world before him.'

'All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,' returned the
delighted Captain.

At the word 'wife' (which he had uttered without design), the
Captain stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on
the top of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at
his always smiling friend.

'I'd bet a gill of old Jamaica,' said the Captain, eyeing him
attentively, 'that I know what you're a smiling at.'

Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.

'It goes no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the
door with the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.

'Not an inch,' said Mr Carker.

'You're thinking of a capital F perhaps?' said the Captain.

Mr Carker didn't deny it.

'Anything about a L,' said the Captain, 'or a O?'

Mr Carker still smiled.

'Am I right, again?' inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the
scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.

Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent,
Captain Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him,
warmly, that they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle)
he had laid his course that way all along. 'He know'd her first,'
said the Captain, with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject
demanded, 'in an uncommon manner - you remember his finding her in
the street when she was a'most a babby - he has liked her ever since,
and she him, as much as two youngsters can. We've always said, Sol
Gills and me, that they was cut out for each other.'

A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not
have shown the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed
him at this period of their interview.

'There's a general indraught that way,' observed the happy
Captain. 'Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his
being present t'other day!'

'Most favourable to his hopes,' said Mr Carker.

'Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!' pursued
the Captain. 'Why what can cut him adrift now?'

'Nothing,' replied Mr Carker.

'You're right again,' returned the Captain, giving his hand
another squeeze. 'Nothing it is. So! steady! There's a son gone:
pretty little creetur. Ain't there?'

'Yes, there's a son gone,' said the acquiescent Carker.

'Pass the word, and there's another ready for you,' quoth the
Captain. 'Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r!
Wal'r, as is already in your business! And' - said the Captain,
rising gradually to a quotation he was preparing for a final burst,
'who - comes from Sol Gills's daily, to your business, and your
buzzums.' The Captain's complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker
with his elbow, on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences,
could be surpassed by nothing but the exultation with which he fell
back and eyed him when he had finished this brilliant display of
eloquence and sagacity; his great blue waistcoat heaving with the
throes of such a masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent
inflammation from the same cause.

'Am I right?' said the Captain.

'Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for
a moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the
whole of himself at once, 'your views in reference to Walter Gay are
thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together
in confidence.

'Honour!' interposed the Captain. 'Not a word.'

'To him or anyone?' pursued the Manager.

Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.

'But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance - and
guidance, of course,' repeated Mr Carker, 'with a view to your future
proceedings.'

'Thank'ee kindly, I am sure,' said the Captain, listening with
great attention.

'I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. You have hit
the probabilities exactly.'

'And with regard to your head Governor,' said the Captain, 'why
an interview had better come about nat'ral between us. There's time
enough.'

Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, 'Time
enough.' Not articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and
forming them with his tongue and lips.

'And as I know - it's what I always said- that Wal'r's in a way
to make his fortune,' said the Captain.

'To make his fortune,' Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb
manner.

'And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in
his day's work, and a part of his general expectations here,' said
the Captain.

'Of his general expectations here,' assented Mr Carker, dumbly
as before.

'Why, so long as I know that,' pursued the Captain, 'there's no
hurry, and my mind's at ease.

Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner,
Captain Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one
of the most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey
might improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness,
therefore, the Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not
unlike an old block in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon
his smoother flesh a proof impression of the chinks and crevices with
which the Captain's palm was liberally tattooed.

'Farewell!' said the Captain. 'I ain't a man of many words, but
I take it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You'll
excuse me if I've been at all intruding, will you?' said the
Captain.

'Not at all,' returned the other.

'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning
back again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself
near Brig Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of
it? - and would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the
person at the door, I should be proud to see you.

With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!'
and walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining
against the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in
whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless
cravat and very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft
hand over his white linen and his smooth face; there was something
desperately cat-like.

The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of
self-glorification that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue
suit. 'Stand by, Ned!' said the Captain to himself. 'You've done a
little business for the youngsters today, my lad!'

In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and
prospective, with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer
office, could not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking
him whether he thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be
bitter on a man who had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his
ear, that if he felt disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would
follow, he would be happy to bestow the same upon him.

Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the
astonishment of the clerks, looked round from a central point of
view, and took a general survey of the officers part and parcel of a
project in which his young friend was nearly interested. The
strong-room excited his especial admiration; but, that he might not
appear too particular, he limited himself to an approving glance,
and, with a graceful recognition of the clerks as a body, that was
full of politeness and patronage, passed out into the court. Being
promptly joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the
tavern, and fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was
precious.

'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!'

'Who?' submitted Mr Perch.

'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.

Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that
there was once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was
much astonished at the Captain's coming into the City to propose a
poet; indeed, if he had proposed to put a poet's statue up - say
Shakespeare's for example - in a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly
have done a greater outrage to Mr Perch's experience. On the whole,
he was such a mysterious and incomprehensible character, that Mr
Perch decided not to mention him to Mrs Perch at all, in case of
giving rise to any disagreeable consequences.

Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively
sense upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters,
remained all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that
Walter attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic
reliefs of himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their
innocent deception upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have
betrayed himself before night. As it was, however, he kept his own
secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's house, wearing
the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a beaming
expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been
brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron)
fortified herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open
street door, and refused to come out to the contemplation of her
blessed infants, until he was securely lodged in his own room.