ess he committed himself by some new admission of ownership,
no flaw could be found in such a form of conveyance.

It was an advantage of the new arrangement, that besides the greater
seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman being
restored to his usual post of observation, and also of the shop shutters
being taken down. The latter ceremony, however little importance the
unconscious Captain attached to it, was not wholly superfluous; for,
on the previous day, so much excitement had been occasioned in
the neighbourhood, by the shutters remaining unopened, that the
Instrument-maker's house had been honoured with an unusual share of
public observation, and had been intently stared at from the opposite
side of the way, by groups of hungry gazers, at any time between sunrise
and sunset. The idlers and vagabonds had been particularly interested in
the Captain's fate; constantly grovelling in the mud to apply their
eyes to the cellar-grating, under the shop-window, and delighting their
imaginations with the fancy that they could see a piece of his coat as
he hung in a corner; though this settlement of him was stoutly disputed
by an opposite faction, who were of opinion that he lay murdered with
a hammer, on the stairs. It was not without exciting some discontent,
therefore, that the subject of these rumours was seen early in the
morning standing at his shop-door as hale and hearty as if nothing
had happened; and the beadle of that quarter, a man of an ambitious
character, who had expected to have the distinction of being present at
the breaking open of the door, and of giving evidence in full uniform
before the coroner, went so far as to say to an opposite neighbour, that
the chap in the glazed hat had better not try it on there--without more
particularly mentioning what--and further, that he, the beadle, would
keep his eye upon him.

'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from
their labours at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street; it
being still early in the morning; 'nothing at all of Uncle Sol, in all
that time!'

'Nothing at all, my lad,' replied the Captain, shaking his head.

'Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man,' said Walter: 'yet never
write to you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you
gave me,' taking the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in
the presence of the enlightened Bunsby, 'that if you never hear from
him before