te, all alone with his
nephew, Walter; a boy of fourteen, who looked quite enough like a
midshipman to carry out the prevailing idea.

It is half past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon. Solomon Gills is
wondering where Walter is, when a voice exclaims, "Halloa, Uncle Sol!"
and the instrument-maker, turning briskly around, sees a
cheerful-looking, merry boy fresh with running home in the rain;
fair-faced, bright-eyed and curly-haired.

"Well, uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner ready?
I'm so hungry."

"As to getting on," said Solomon, good-naturedly, "It would be odd if I
couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than
with you. As to dinner being ready, it's been waiting for you this
half-hour. As to being hungry, I am!"

"Come along, then, uncle!" cried the boy, and Uncle Sol and his nephew
were speedily engaged on a fried sole, with a prospect of steak
to follow.

"Now," said the old man eagerly, "Let's hear something about the Firm."

"Oh! there's not much to be told, uncle," said the boy, plying his knife
and fork. "When Mr. Dombey came in, he walked up to my seat--I wish he
wasn't so solemn and stiff, uncle--and told me you had spoken to him
about me, and that he had found me employment in the House accordingly,
and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then he went
away. I thought he didn't seem to like me much."

"You mean, I suppose." observed the instrument-maker, "that you didn't
seem to like him much."

"Well, uncle," returned the boy laughing, "perhaps so; I never thought
of that."

Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced
from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was done, he
went down into a little cellar, and returned with a bottle covered with
dust and dirt.

"Why, uncle Sol!" said the boy, "What are you about? that's the
wonderful Madeira--there's only one more bottle!"

Uncle Sol nodded his head, and having drawn the cork in solemn silence,
filled two glasses, and set the bottle and a third clean glass on
the table.

"You shall drink the other bottle, Wally," he said, "When you come to
good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the
start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you--as I pray
Heaven it may!--to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my
child. My love to you!"

They clinked their glasses together, and were deep in conversation, w