riend there--what a pleasant face she
has to be sure, to welcome a wanderer home!' said the old man, breaking
off, and rubbing his hands in his old dreamy way.

'Hear him!' cried the Captain gravely. ''Tis woman as seduces all
mankind. For which,' aside to Mr Toots, 'you'll overhaul your Adam and
Eve, brother.'

'I shall make a point of doing so, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots.

'Although I have heard something of the changes of events, from her,'
resumed the Instrument-maker, taking his old spectacles from his pocket,
and putting them on his forehead in his old manner, 'they are so great
and unexpected, and I am so overpowered by the sight of my dear boy, and
by the,'--glancing at the downcast eyes of Florence, and not attempting
to finish the sentence--'that I--I can't say much to-night. But my dear
Ned Cuttle, why didn't you write?'

The astonishment depicted in the Captain's features positively
frightened Mr Toots, whose eyes were quite fixed by it, so that he could
not withdraw them from his face.

'Write!' echoed the Captain. 'Write, Sol Gills?'

'Ay,' said the old man, 'either to Barbados, or Jamaica, or Demerara,
That was what I asked.'

'What you asked, Sol Gills?' repeated the Captain.

'Ay,' said the old man. 'Don't you know, Ned? Sure you have not
forgotten? Every time I wrote to you.'

The Captain took off his glazed hat, hung it on his hook, and smoothing
his hair from behind with his hand, sat gazing at the group around him:
a perfect image of wondering resignation.

'You don't appear to understand me, Ned!' observed old Sol.

'Sol Gills,' returned the Captain, after staring at him and the rest
for a long time, without speaking, 'I'm gone about and adrift. Pay out
a word or two respecting them adwenturs, will you! Can't I bring up,
nohows? Nohows?' said the Captain, ruminating, and staring all round.

'You know, Ned,' said Sol Gills, 'why I left here. Did you open my
packet, Ned?'

'Why, ay, ay,' said the Captain. 'To be sure, I opened the packet.'

'And read it?' said the old man.

'And read it,' answered the Captain, eyeing him attentively, and
proceeding to quote it from memory. '"My dear Ned Cuttle, when I left
home for the West Indies in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear-"
There he sits! There's Wal'r!' said the Captain, as if he were relieved
by getting hold of anything that was real and indisputable.

'Well, Ned. Now attend a moment!' said the old man. 'When I wrote
first