Appearing not to get it, after waiting a minute or two to see if it would come, Mr Toots took a hasty leave, and went below to seek the Captain, whom he found in the shop.
“Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots, “what is now to take place between us, takes place under the sacred seal of confidence. It is the sequel, Captain Gills, of what has taken place between myself and Miss Dombey, upstairs.”
“Alow and aloft, eh, my lad?” murmured the Captain.
“Exactly so, Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots, whose fervour of acquiescence was greatly heightened by his entire ignorance of the Captain’s meaning. “Miss Dombey, I believe, Captain Gills, is to be shortly united to Lieutenant Walters?”
“Why, ay, my lad. We’re all shipmets here,—Wal”r and sweet—heart will be jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as the askings is over,” whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear.
“The askings, Captain Gills!” repeated Mr Toots.
“In the church, down yonder,” said the Captain, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh! Yes!” returned Mr Toots.
“And then,” said the Captain, in his hoarse whisper, and tapping Mr Toots on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling from him with a look of infinite admiration, “what follers? That there pretty creetur, as delicately brought up as a foreign bird, goes away upon the roaring main with Wal”r on a woyage to China!”
“Lord, Captain Gills!” said Mr Toots.