ing him the blue coat and
waistcoat, and bustling very much, 'if you'll come and break the news to
Uncle Sol (which he ought to have known, days upon days ago, by
rights), I'll leave you at the door, you know, and walk about until the
afternoon.'

The Captain, however, scarcely appeared to relish the commission, or to
be by any means confident of his powers of executing it. He had arranged
the future life and adventures of Walter so very differently, and so
entirely to his own satisfaction; he had felicitated himself so often on
the sagacity and foresight displayed in that arrangement, and had found
it so complete and perfect in all its parts; that to suffer it to go
to pieces all at once, and even to assist in breaking it up, required a
great effort of his resolution. The Captain, too, found it difficult to
unload his old ideas upon the subject, and to take a perfectly new
cargo on board, with that rapidity which the circumstances required,
or without jumbling and confounding the two. Consequently, instead of
putting on his coat and waistcoat with anything like the impetuosity
that could alone have kept pace with Walter's mood, he declined to
invest himself with those garments at all at present; and informed
Walter that on such a serious matter, he must be allowed to 'bite his
nails a bit'.

'It's an old habit of mine, Wal'r,' said the Captain, 'any time these
fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then you may
know that Ned Cuttle's aground.'

Thereupon the Captain put his iron hook between his teeth, as if it
were a hand; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the very
concentration and sublimation of all philosophical reflection and grave
inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in its
various branches.

'There's a friend of mine,' murmured the Captain, in an absent manner,
'but he's at present coasting round to Whitby, that would deliver such
an opinion on this subject, or any other that could be named, as would
give Parliament six and beat 'em. Been knocked overboard, that man,'
said the Captain, 'twice, and none the worse for it. Was beat in his
apprenticeship, for three weeks (off and on), about the head with a
ring-bolt. And yet a clearer-minded man don't walk.'

Despite of his respect for Captain Cuttle, Walter could not help
inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping that
his limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his