He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with extraordinary expression:
“The?”
“The,” returned the Instrument-maker.
Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think they were making holiday indeed.
“Wal”r!” he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, “Look at him! Love! Honour! And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!”
He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and saying he had forgotten ’em these forty year.
“But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn’t know where to lay my hand upon ’em, Gills,” he observed. “It comes of not wasting language as some do.”
The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young Norval’s father, ‘increase his store.’ At any rate he became silent, and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:—
“I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?”
“I shouldn’t wonder, Captain Cuttle,” returned the boy.