g air from the neighbourhood of
the East India Docks, that Captain Cuttle found himself in the very act
of sitting looking at her, before the calm face with which he had been
meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay.

But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his
misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting at
the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little range
of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the latter,
like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only sought to
hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant effort he
would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate dispositions
of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs--one of those
dear children holding on to each--claimed him as their friend, with
lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs MacStinger, who never entered
upon any action of importance without previously inverting Alexander
MacStinger, to bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps,
and then sitting him down to cool as the reader first beheld him,
performed that solemn rite, as if on this occasion it were a sacrifice
to the Furies; and having deposited the victim on the floor, made at the
Captain with a strength of purpose that appeared to threaten scratches
to the interposing Bunsby.

The cries of the two elder MacStingers, and the wailing of young
Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood, forasmuch
as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy period of
existence, combined to make this visitation the more awful. But when
silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent perspiration, stood
meekly looking at Mrs MacStinger, its terrors were at their height.

'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle!' said Mrs MacStinger, making her chin
rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of her
sex, might be described as her fist. 'Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle,
do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in the
berth!'

The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered 'Standby!'

'Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof, Cap'en
Cuttle, I was!' cried Mrs MacStinger. 'To think of the benefits I've
showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children up to
love and honour him as if he was a father to 'em, when there ain't a
housekeeper, no nor a lodger in o