once more.

'I think,' he said, 'my good friend Captain Cuttle mentioned something
about being towed along in the wake of that day. What a pity he's so far
away!'

He refolded the letter, and was sitting trifling with it, standing it
long-wise and broad-wise on his table, and turning it over and over
on all sides--doing pretty much the same thing, perhaps, by its
contents--when Mr Perch the messenger knocked softly at the door, and
coming in on tiptoe, bending his body at every step as if it were the
delight of his life to bow, laid some papers on the table.

'Would you please to be engaged, Sir?' asked Mr Perch, rubbing his
hands, and deferentially putting his head on one side, like a man who
felt he had no business to hold it up in such a presence, and would keep
it as much out of the way as possible.

'Who wants me?'

'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, in a soft voice, 'really nobody, Sir, to
speak of at present. Mr Gills the Ship's Instrument-maker, Sir, has
looked in, about a little matter of payment, he says: but I mentioned to
him, Sir, that you was engaged several deep; several deep.'

Mr Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further orders.

'Anybody else?'

'Well, Sir,' said Mr Perch, 'I wouldn't of my own self take the liberty
of mentioning, Sir, that there was anybody else; but that same young lad
that was here yesterday, Sir, and last week, has been hanging about the
place; and it looks, Sir,' added Mr Perch, stopping to shut the door,
'dreadful unbusiness-like to see him whistling to the sparrows down the
court, and making of 'em answer him.'

'You said he wanted something to do, didn't you, Perch?' asked Mr
Carker, leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer.

'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing behind his hand again, 'his
expression certainly were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and that
he considered something might be done for him about the Docks, being
used to fishing with a rod and line: but--' Mr Perch shook his head very
dubiously indeed.

'What does he say when he comes?' asked Mr Carker.

'Indeed, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing another cough behind his hand,
which was always his resource as an expression of humility when nothing
else occurred to him, 'his observation generally air that he would
humbly wish to see one of the gentlemen, and that he wants to earn a
living. But you see, Sir,' added Perch, dropping his voice to a whisper,
and turning, in the inviola