t of
the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit. Some people
suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were right. But
whatever I leave behind me, or whatever I can give you, you in such a
House as Dombey's are in the road to use well and make the most of. Be
diligent, try to like it, my dear boy, work for a steady independence,
and be happy!'

'I'll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed I
will,' said the boy, earnestly.

'I know it,' said Solomon. 'I am sure of it,' and he applied himself
to a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish. 'As to the
Sea,' he pursued, 'that's well enough in fiction, Wally, but it won't do
in fact: it won't do at all. It's natural enough that you should think
about it, associating it with all these familiar things; but it won't
do, it won't do.'

Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment, as he
talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects about him
with inexpressible complacency.

'Think of this wine for instance,' said old Sol, 'which has been to the
East Indies and back, I'm not able to say how often, and has been once
round the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring winds, and
rolling seas:'

'The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,' said the boy.

'To be sure,' said Solomon,--'that this wine has passed through. Think
what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a whistling and
howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:'

'What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall lie
out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship rolls and
pitches, like mad!' cried his nephew.

'Exactly so,' said Solomon: 'has gone on, over the old cask that held
this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the--'

'In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes past
twelve when the captain's watch stopped in his pocket; he lying
dead against the main-mast--on the fourteenth of February, seventeen
forty-nine!' cried Walter, with great animation.

'Ay, to be sure!' cried old Sol, 'quite right! Then, there were five
hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the first mate,
first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat) going to work
to stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing "Rule Britannia",
when she settled and went down, and ending with one awful scream in
chorus.