old
age. Twenty-five, Sir.'

'You are as punctual and exact, Mr Gills,' replied the smiling Manager,
taking a paper from one of his many drawers, and making an endorsement
on it, while Uncle Sol looked over him, 'as one of your own
chronometers. Quite right.'

'The Son and Heir has not been spoken, I find by the list, Sir,' said
Uncle Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in his voice.

'The Son and Heir has not been spoken,' returned Carker. 'There seems
to have been tempestuous weather, Mr Gills, and she has probably been
driven out of her course.'

'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' said old Sol.

'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' assented Mr Carker in that voiceless
manner of his: which made the observant young Toodle tremble again. 'Mr
Gills,' he added aloud, throwing himself back in his chair, 'you must
miss your nephew very much?'

Uncle Sol, standing by him, shook his head and heaved a deep sigh.

'Mr Gills,' said Carker, with his soft hand playing round his mouth, and
looking up into the Instrument-maker's face, 'it would be company to you
to have a young fellow in your shop just now, and it would be obliging
me if you would give one house-room for the present. No, to be sure,'
he added quickly, in anticipation of what the old man was going to say,
'there's not much business doing there, I know; but you can make him
clean the place out, polish up the instruments; drudge, Mr Gills. That's
the lad!'

Sol Gills pulled down his spectacles from his forehead to his eyes,
and looked at Toodle Junior standing upright in the corner: his head
presenting the appearance (which it always did) of having been newly
drawn out of a bucket of cold water; his small waistcoat rising and
falling quickly in the play of his emotions; and his eyes intently fixed
on Mr Carker, without the least reference to his proposed master.

'Will you give him house-room, Mr Gills?' said the Manager.

Old Sol, without being quite enthusiastic on the subject, replied that
he was glad of any opportunity, however slight, to oblige Mr Carker,
whose wish on such a point was a command: and that the wooden Midshipman
would consider himself happy to receive in his berth any visitor of Mr
Carker's selecting.

Mr Carker bared himself to the tops and bottoms of his gums: making
the watchful Toodle Junior tremble more and more: and acknowledged the
Instrument-maker's politeness in his most affable manner.

'I'll dispose of him so, then