se of either; and when he ran up to the stern, and looked after
them, he saw his Uncle hanging down his head in the boat, and Captain
Cuttle rapping him on the back with the great silver watch (it must have
been very painful), and gesticulating hopefully with the teaspoons
and sugar-tongs. Catching sight of Walter, Captain Cuttle dropped the
property into the bottom of the boat with perfect unconcern, being
evidently oblivious of its existence, and pulling off the glazed hat
hailed him lustily. The glazed hat made quite a show in the sun with its
glistening, and the Captain continued to wave it until he could be
seen no longer. Then the confusion on board, which had been rapidly
increasing, reached its height; two or three other boats went away with
a cheer; the sails shone bright and full above, as Walter watched
them spread their surface to the favourable breeze; the water flew in
sparkles from the prow; and off upon her voyage went the Son and Heir,
as hopefully and trippingly as many another son and heir, gone down, had
started on his way before her.

Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the
little hack parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread
before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed upstairs,
so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns, he looked
up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer watch than
would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last bottle of the
old Madeira, which had had its cruising days, and known its dangers of
the deep, lay silently beneath its dust and cobwebs, in the meanwhile,
undisturbed.

CHAPTER 20. Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey

'Mr Dombey, Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B. is not in general a man
of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings, Sir, and
when they are awakened--Damme, Mr Dombey,' cried the Major with sudden
ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit to it!'

Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving
Mr Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess's
Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to their
setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had already
undergone a world of misery arising out of the muffins, while, in
connexion with the general question of boiled eggs, life was a burden to
him.

'It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,' observed th