“Because you know,” says Mr Toots, “I have never changed my sentiments towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the same bright vision to me, at present, that she was before I made Walters’s acquaintance. When Mrs Toots and myself first began to talk of—in short, of the tender passion, you know, Captain Gills.”
“Ay, ay, my lad,” says the Captain, “as makes us all slue round—for which you’ll overhaul the book—”
“I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills,” says Mr Toots, with great earnestness; “when we first began to mention such subjects, I explained that I was what you may call a Blighted Flower, you know.”
The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no flower as blows, is like the rose.
“But Lord bless me,” pursues Mr Toots, “she was as entirely conscious of the state of my feelings as I was myself. There was nothing I could tell her. She was the only person who could have stood between me and the silent Tomb, and she did it, in a manner to command my everlasting admiration. She knows that there’s nobody in the world I look up to, as I do to Miss Dombey. Knows that there’s nothing on earth I wouldn’t do for Miss Dombey. She knows that I consider Miss Dombey the most beautiful, the most amiable, the most angelic of her sex. What is her observation upon that? The perfection of sense. ‘My dear, you’re right. I think so too.’”
“And so do I!” says the Captain.
“So do I,” says Sol Gills.
“Then,” resumes Mr Toots, after some contemplative pulling at his pipe, during which his visage has expressed the most contented reflection, “what an observant woman my wife is! What sagacity she possesses! What remarks she makes! It was only last night, when we were sitting in the enjoyment of connubial bliss—which, upon my word and honour, is a feeble term to express my feelings in the society of my wife—that she said how remarkable it was to consider the present position of our friend Walters. ‘Here,’ observes my wife, ‘he is, released from sea-going, after that first long voyage with his young bride’—as you know he was, Mr Sols.”
“Quite true,” says the old Instrument-maker, rubbing his hands.
“‘Here he is,’ says my wife, ‘released from that, immediately; appointed by the same establishment to a post of great trust and confidence at home; showing himself again worthy; mounting up the ladder with the greatest expedition; beloved by everybody; assisted by his uncle at the very best possible time of his fortunes’—which I think is the case, Mr Sols? My wife is always correct.”