uckle, 'I know I'm wasting
away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I--I should like it.
Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of thinness.
It's a gratification to me. I--I'm glad of it. I--I'd a great deal
rather go into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute you know, grazing
upon the surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'

The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was
weighed down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of
uneasiness, and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in
such a scared and strange condition, indeed, that if he had been
in conversation with a ghost, he could hardly have evinced greater
discomposure.

'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening to
be this way early this morning--to tell you the truth, I was coming to
breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might be
a Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's got nothing on his
mind.'

'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.

'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true! Happening to
be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the door
shut--'

'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain.

'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a moment.
I thought you were out. But the person said--by the bye, you don't keep
a dog, you, Captain Gills?'

The Captain shook his head.

'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew you
didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with--but excuse me.
That's forbidden ground.'

The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his
natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain's
forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come
down and make a third in the parlour.

'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog barking
in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But he was as
positive as if he had seen the dog.'

'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.

'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for
me to say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place.
Indeed, I don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I
don't quite understand, and I think there's s