“And posted by my own hand! And directed by my own hand, Number nine Brig Place!” exclaimed old Sol.
The colour all went out of the Captain’s face and all came back again in a glow.
“What do you mean, Sol Gills, my friend, by Number nine Brig Place?” inquired the Captain.
“Mean? Your lodgings, Ned,” returned the old man. “Mrs What’s-her-name! I shall forget my own name next, but I am behind the present time—I always was, you recollect—and very much confused. Mrs—”
“Sol Gills!” said the Captain, as if he were putting the most improbable case in the world, “it ain’t the name of MacStinger as you’re a trying to remember?”
“Of course it is!” exclaimed the Instrument-maker. “To be sure Ned. Mrs MacStinger!”
Captain Cuttle, whose eyes were now as wide open as they would be, and the knobs upon whose face were perfectly luminous, gave a long shrill whistle of a most melancholy sound, and stood gazing at everybody in a state of speechlessness.
“Overhaul that there again, Sol Gills, will you be so kind?” he said at last.
“All these letters,” returned Uncle Sol, beating time with the forefinger of his right hand upon the palm of his left, with a steadiness and distinctness that might have done honour, even to the infallible chronometer in his pocket, “I posted with my own hand, and directed with my own hand, to Captain Cuttle, at Mrs MacStinger’s, Number nine Brig Place.”
The Captain took his glazed hat off his hook, looked into it, put it on, and sat down.