ned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey was not
there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.

'I tell you what, Wal'r!' said the Captain, who seemed to have prepared
himself for this contingency in his absence. 'We'll go to Brighton.
I'll back you, my boy. I'll back you, Wal'r. We'll go to Brighton by the
afternoon's coach.'

If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was awful
to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone and
unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain Cuttle, to
which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight. But as the
Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was bent upon it,
and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be trifled with
by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint the least
objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of Solomon Gills,
and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the sugar-tongs, and
the silver watch, to his pocket--with a view, as Walter thought, with
horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr Dombey--bore him off to
the coach-office, with--out a minute's delay, and repeatedly assured
him, on the road, that he would stick by him to the last.

CHAPTER 10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster

Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across
Princess's Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after
receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that
subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication with
Miss Tox's maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that Dombey,
Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make his
acquaintance.

Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly
declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often
did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the
Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain
to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance,
'which,' as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, 'has been
fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder brother
died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.'

It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it
befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars,
reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was sud