“Gills,” said Captain Cuttle, “what’s the bearings of this business? Who’s the creditor?”
“Hush!” returned the old man. “Come away. Don’t speak before Wally. It’s a matter of security for Wally’s father—an old bond. I’ve paid a good deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can’t do more just now. I’ve foreseen it, but I couldn’t help it. Not a word before Wally, for all the world.”
“You’ve got some money, haven’t you?” whispered the Captain.
“Yes, yes—oh yes—I’ve got some,” returned old Sol, first putting his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig between them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it; “but I—the little I have got, isn’t convertible, Ned; it can’t be got at. I have been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I’m old fashioned, and behind the time. It’s here and there, and—and, in short, it’s as good as nowhere,” said the old man, looking in bewilderment about him.
He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding his money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the Captain followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might remember some few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in the cellar. But Solomon Gills knew better than that.
“I’m behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,” said Sol, in resigned despair, “a long way. It’s no use my lagging on so far behind it. The stock had better be sold—it’s worth more than this debt—and I had better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven’t any energy left. I don’t understand things. This had better be the end of it. Let ’em sell the stock and take him down,” said the old man, pointing feebly to the wooden Midshipman, “and let us both be broken up together.”
“And what d’ye mean to do with Wal”r?” said the Captain. “There, there! Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o’ this. If I warn’t a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till today, I hadn’t need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the wind,” said the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece of consolation, “and you’re all right!”
Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against the back parlour fire-place instead.
Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time, cogitating profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear so heavily on his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter was afraid to offer any interruption to the current of his reflections. Mr Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly whistling, among the stock; rattling weather-glasses, shaking compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones, looking through telescopes, endeavouring to make himself acquainted with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions.