The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘let’s hear something about the Firm.’
‘Oh! there’s not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,’ said the boy, plying his knife and fork. ‘It’s a precious dark set of offices, and in the room where I sit, there’s a high fender, and an iron safe, and some cards about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack, and some desks and stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some boxes, and a lot of cobwebs, and in one of ‘em, just over my head, a shrivelled-up blue-bottle that looks as if it had hung there ever so long.’
‘Nothing else?’ said the Uncle.
‘No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever came there!) and a coal-scuttle.’
‘No bankers’ books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of wealth rolling in from day to day?’ said old Sol, looking wistfully at his nephew out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and laying an unctuous emphasis upon the words.
‘Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,’ returned his nephew carelessly; ‘but all that sort of thing’s in Mr Carker’s room, or Mr Morfin’s, or Mr Dombey’s.’
‘Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?’ inquired the Uncle.
‘Oh yes! In and out all day.’
‘He didn’t take any notice of you, I suppose?’.
‘Yes he did. He walked up to my seat,—I wish he wasn’t so solemn and stiff, Uncle,—and said, “Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the Ships’ Instrument-maker.” “Nephew, Sir,” I said. “I said nephew, boy,” said he. But I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.’
‘You’re mistaken I daresay. It’s no matter.’
‘No, it’s no matter, but he needn’t have been so sharp, I thought. There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the House accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then he went away. I thought he didn’t seem to like me much.’
‘You mean, I suppose,’ observed the Instrument-maker, ‘that you didn’t seem to like him much?’
‘Well, Uncle,’ returned the boy, laughing. ‘Perhaps so; I never thought of that.’
Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced from time to time at the boy’s bright face. When dinner was done, and the cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been brought from a neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and went down below into a little cellar, while his nephew, standing on the mouldy staircase, dutifully held the light. After a moment’s groping here and there, he presently returned with a very ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt.
‘Why, Uncle Sol!’ said the boy, ‘what are you about? that’s the wonderful Madeira!—there’s only one more bottle!’
Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he was about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two glasses and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.
‘You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,’ he said, ‘when you come to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I pray Heaven it may!—to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. My love to you!’
Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his glass against his nephew’s. But having once got the wine to his lips, he tossed it off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.
‘Dear Uncle,’ said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while the tears stood in his eyes, ‘for the honour you have done me, et cetera, et cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with three times three and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you’ll return thanks, Uncle, when we drink the last bottle together; won’t you?’
They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as critical an air as he could possibly assume.
His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their eyes at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had occupied his thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.
‘You see, Walter,’ he said, ‘in truth this business is merely a habit with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly live if I relinquished it: but there’s nothing doing, nothing doing. When that uniform was worn,’ pointing out towards the little Midshipman, ‘then indeed, fortunes were to be made, and were made. But competition, competition—new invention, new invention—alteration, alteration—the world’s gone past me. I hardly know where I am myself, much less where my customers are.’
‘Never mind ‘em, Uncle!’
‘Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for instance—and that’s ten days,’ said Solomon, ‘I don’t remember more than one person that has come into the shop.’
‘Two, Uncle, don’t you recollect? There was the man who came to ask for change for a sovereign—’
‘That’s the one,’ said Solomon.
‘Why Uncle! don’t you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the way to Mile-End Turnpike?’
‘Oh! it’s true,’ said Solomon, ‘I forgot her. Two persons.’
‘To be sure, they didn’t buy anything,’ cried the boy.
‘No. They didn’t buy anything,’ said Solomon, quietly.
‘Nor want anything,’ cried the boy.
‘No. If they had, they’d gone to another shop,’ said Solomon, in the same tone.
‘But there were two of ‘em, Uncle,’ cried the boy, as if that were a great triumph. ‘You said only one.’
‘Well, Wally,’ resumed the old man, after a short pause: ‘not being like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe’s Island, we can’t live on a man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires the way to Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don’t blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.’
Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.
‘Therefore, Wally—therefore it is that I am anxious you should be early in the busy world, and on the world’s track. I am only the ghost of this business—its substance vanished long ago; and when I die, its ghost will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then, I have thought it best to use for your advantage, almost the only fragment of the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit. Some people suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for
