ter
necessaries, the Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate about his
person, ready for flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig Place was
buried in slumber, and Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet oblivion, with
her infants around her, the guilty Captain, stealing down on tiptoe, in
the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after him, and took to his
heels.

Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also by
a consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a great
pace, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig Place
and the Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked--for Rob
was on the watch--and when it was bolted and locked behind him, Captain
Cuttle felt comparatively safe.

'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!'

'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob.

'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to
a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any lady,
except either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and asks
for Cap'en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name known, nor
never heard of here; observe them orders, will you?'

'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.

'You might say--if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd
read in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia,
emigrating, along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all
swore never to come back no more.

Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain Cuttle
promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him,
yawning, to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the chamber of
Solomon Gills.

What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or how
often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, and
sought safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the fatigues
attendant on this means of self-preservation, the Captain curtained the
glass door of communication between the shop and parlour, on the inside;
fitted a key to it from the bunch that had been sent to him; and cut a
small hole of espial in the wall. The advantage of this fortification is
obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the Captain instantly slipped into his
garrison, locked himself up, and took a secret observation of the enemy.
Finding it a f