“To be sure,” said Mr Toots, “that’s exactly what I said. I knew you didn’t. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with—but excuse me. That’s forbidden ground.”
The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain’s forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come down and make a third in the parlour.
“The person said,” continued Mr Toots, “that he had heard a dog barking in the shop: which I knew couldn’t be, and I told him so. But he was as positive as if he had seen the dog.”
“What person, my lad?” inquired the Captain.
“Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots, with a perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. “It’s not for me to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place. Indeed, I don’t know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I don’t quite understand, and I think there’s something rather weak in my—in my head, in short.”
The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
“But the person said, as we were walking away,” continued Mr Toots, “that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur—he said ‘might,’ very strongly—and that if you were requested to prepare yourself, you would, no doubt, come prepared.”
“Person, my lad” the Captain repeated.
“I don’t know what person, I’m sure, Captain Gills,” replied Mr Toots, “I haven’t the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him waiting there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; and he said did I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of your acquaintance—you had given me the pleasure of your acquaintance, after some persuasion; and he said, if that was the case, would I say to you what I have said, about existing circumstances and coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you, would I ask you to step round the corner, if it was only for one minute, on most important business, to Mr Brogley’s the Broker’s. Now, I tell you what, Captain Gills—whatever it is, I am convinced it’s very important; and if you like to step round, now, I’ll wait here till you come back.”
The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in some way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in possession of the house with a chance of finding out the secret, was a spectacle of mental disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be blind to. But that young gentleman, considering his nautical friend as merely in a state of preparation for the interview he was going to have, was quite satisfied, and did not review his own discreet conduct without chuckle.