Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens (ebook reader 7 inch .txt) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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âCome along then, Uncle!â cried the boy. âHurrah for the admiral!â
âConfound the admiral!â returned Solomon Gills. âYou mean the Lord Mayor.â
âNo I donât!â cried the boy. âHurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for the admiral! For-ward!â
At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne without resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding party of five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on a fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow.
âThe Lord Mayor, Wally,â said Solomon, âfor ever! No more admirals. The Lord Mayorâs your admiral.â
âOh, is he though!â said the boy, shaking his head. âWhy, the Sword Bearerâs better than him. He draws his sword sometimes.â
âAnd a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,â returned the Uncle. âListen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.â
âWhy who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?â exclaimed the boy.
âI have,â said his Uncle. âNo more mugs now. We must begin to drink out of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to the City. We started in life this morning.â
âWell, Uncle,â said the boy, âIâll drink out of anything you like, so long as I can drink to you. Hereâs to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah for theââ
âLord Mayor,â interrupted the old man.
âFor the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,â said the boy. âLong life to âem!â
The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. âAnd now,â he said, âletâs hear something about the Firm.â
âOh! thereâs not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,â said the boy, plying his knife and fork. âItâs a precious dark set of offices, and in the room where I sit, thereâs a high fender, and an iron safe, and some cards about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack, and some desks and stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some boxes, and a lot of cobwebs, and in one of âem, just over my head, a shrivelled-up blue-bottle that looks as if it had hung there ever so long.â
âNothing else?â said the Uncle.
âNo, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever came there!) and a coal-scuttle.â
âNo bankersâ books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of wealth rolling in from day to day?â said old Sol, looking wistfully at his nephew out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and laying an unctuous emphasis upon the words.
âOh yes, plenty of that I suppose,â returned his nephew carelessly; âbut all that sort of thingâs in Mr Carkerâs room, or Mr Morfinâs, or Mr Dombeyâs.â
âHas Mr Dombey been there to-day?â inquired the Uncle.
âOh yes! In and out all day.â
âHe didnât take any notice of you, I suppose?â.
âYes he did. He walked up to my seat,âI wish he wasnât so solemn and stiff, Uncle,âand said, âOh! you are the son of Mr Gills the Shipsâ Instrument-maker.â âNephew, Sir,â I said. âI said nephew, boy,â said he. But I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.â
âYouâre mistaken I daresay. Itâs no matter.â
âNo, itâs no matter, but he neednât have been so sharp, I thought. There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that 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 didnât seem to like me much.â
âYou mean, I suppose,â observed the Instrument-maker, âthat you didnât seem to like him much?â
âWell, Uncle,â returned the boy, laughing. âPerhaps so; I never thought of that.â
Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced from time to time at the boyâs bright face. When dinner was done, and the cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been brought from a neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and went down below into a little cellar, while his nephew, standing on the mouldy staircase, dutifully held the light. After a momentâs groping here and there, he presently returned with a very ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt.
âWhy, Uncle Sol!â said the boy, âwhat are you about? thatâs the wonderful Madeira!âthereâs only one more bottle!â
Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he was about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two glasses and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.
âYou shall drink the other bottle, Wally,â he said, âwhen 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!âto a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. My love to you!â
Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his glass against his nephewâs. But having once got the wine to his lips, he tossed it off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.
âDear Uncle,â said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while the tears stood in his eyes, âfor the honour you have done me, et cetera, et cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with three times three and one cheer more. Hurrah! and youâll return thanks, Uncle, when we drink the last bottle together; wonât you?â
They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as critical an air as he could possibly assume.
His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their eyes at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had occupied his thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.
âYou see, Walter,â he said, âin truth this business is merely a habit with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly live if I relinquished it: but thereâs nothing doing, nothing doing. When that uniform was worn,â pointing out towards the little Midshipman, âthen indeed, fortunes were to be made, and were made. But competition, competitionânew invention, new inventionâalteration, alterationâthe worldâs gone past me. I hardly know where I am myself, much less where my customers are.â
âNever mind âem, Uncle!â
âSince you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for instanceâand thatâs ten days,â said Solomon, âI donât remember more than one person that has come into the shop.â
âTwo, Uncle, donât you recollect? There was the man who came to ask for change for a sovereignââ
âThatâs the one,â said Solomon.
âWhy Uncle! donât you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the way to Mile-End Turnpike?â
âOh! itâs true,â said Solomon, âI forgot her. Two persons.â
âTo be sure, they didnât buy anything,â cried the boy.
âNo. They didnât buy anything,â said Solomon, quietly.
âNor want anything,â cried the boy.
âNo. If they had, theyâd gone to another shop,â said Solomon, in the same tone.
âBut there were two of âem, Uncle,â cried the boy, as if that were a great triumph. âYou said only one.â
âWell, Wally,â resumed the old man, after a short pause: ânot being like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoeâs Island, we canât live on a man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires the way to Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I donât blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.â
Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.
âTherefore, Wallyâtherefore it is that I am anxious you should be early in the busy world, and on the worldâs track. I am only the ghost of this businessâits substance vanished long ago; and when I die, its ghost will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then, I have thought it best to use for your advantage, almost the only fragment of the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit. Some people suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were right. But whatever I leave behind me, or whatever I can give you, you in such a House as Dombeyâs are in the road to use well and make the most of. Be diligent, try to like it, my dear boy, work for a steady independence, and be happy!â
âIâll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed I will,â said the boy, earnestly.
âI know it,â said Solomon. âI am sure of it,â and he applied himself to a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish. âAs to the Sea,â he pursued, âthatâs well enough in fiction, Wally, but it wonât do in fact: it wonât do at all. Itâs natural enough that you should think about it, associating it with all these familiar things; but it wonât do, it wonât do.â
Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment, as he talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects about him with inexpressible complacency.
âThink of this wine for instance,â said old Sol, âwhich has been to the East Indies and back, Iâm not able to say how often, and has been once round the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring winds, and rolling seas:â
âThe thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,â said the boy.
âTo be sure,â said Solomon,ââthat this wine has passed through. Think what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a whistling and howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:â
âWhat a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall lie out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship rolls and pitches, like mad!â cried his nephew.
âExactly so,â said Solomon: âhas gone on, over the old cask that held this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in theââ
âIn the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes past twelve when the captainâs watch stopped in his pocket; he lying dead against the main-mastâon the fourteenth of February, seventeen forty-nine!â cried Walter, with great animation.
âAy, to be sure!â cried old Sol, âquite right! Then, there were five hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the first mate, first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat) going to work to stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing âRule Britanniaâ, when she settled and went down, and ending with one awful scream in chorus.â
âBut when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast of Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the fourth of March, âseventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard; and the horses breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and tearing to and fro, and trampling each other to death, made such noises, and set up such human cries, that the crew believing the ship to be full of devils, some of the best men, losing heart and head, went overboard in despair, and only two were left alive, at last, to tell the tale.â
âAnd when,â said old Sol,
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