'Not Number Nine?' asked Florence, hesitating.
'Who said it wasn't Number Nine?' said Mrs MacStinger.
Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.
Mrs MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. 'What do you want with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?' said Mrs MacStinger.
'Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,' returned Miss Nipper.
'Hush, Susan! If you please!' said Florence. 'Perhaps you can have the goodness to tell us where Captain Cutlle lives, Ma'am as he don't live here.'
'Who says he don't live here?' retorted the implacable MacStinger. 'I said it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and it ain't his house -and forbid it, that it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle don't know how to keep a house - and don't deserve to have a house - it's my house - and when I let the upper floor to Cap'en Cuttle, oh I do a thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!'
Mrs MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering these remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if from a rifle possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot, the Captain's voice was heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his own room, 'Steady below!'
'Since you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!' said Mrs MacStinger, with an angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter, without any more parley, and on Susan following, Mrs MacStinger recommenced her pedestrian exercise in pattens, and Alexander MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying to attend to the conversation, began to wail again, entertaining himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical, with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the hackney-coach.
The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his pockets and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small desolate island, lying about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The Captain's windows had been cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the stove had been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet, and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain, cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come that way, and take him off.
But when the Captain, directing his forlorn visage towards the door, saw Florence appear with her maid, no words can describe his astonishment. Mrs MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other sounds but imperfectly distinguishable, he had looked for no rarer visitor than the potboy or the milkman; wherefore, when Florence appeared, and coming to the confines of the island, put her hand in his, the Captain stood up, aghast, as if he supposed her, for the moment, to be some young member of the Flying Dutchman's family.'
Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's first care was to place her on dry land, which he happily accomplished, with one motion of his arm. Issuing forth, then, upon the main, Captain Cuttle took Miss Nipper round the waist, and bore her to the island also. Captain Cuttle, then, with great respect and admiration, raised the hand of Florence to his lips, and standing off a little(for the island was not large enough for three), beamed on her from the soap and water like a new description of Triton.
'You are amazed to see us, I am sure,'said Florence, with a smile.
The inexpressibly gratified Captain kissed his hook in reply, and growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included in the words, 'Stand by! Stand by!'