CHARLES DICKENS DOMBEY AND SON CHAPTER I Dombey and ...

The colour all went out of the Captain's face, and all came back again in a
glow.
'What do you mean, Sol Gills, my friend, by Number nine Brig Place?'
inquired the Captain.
'Mean? Your lodgings, Ned,' returned the old man. 'Mrs. What's-her-name! I
shall forget my own name next, but I am behind the present time--I always
was, you recollect --and very much confused. Mrs.'
'Sol Gills!' said the Captain, as if he were putting the most improbable
case in the world, 'it ain't the name of MacStinger as you're a trying to
remember?'
'Of course it is!' exclaimed the Instrument-maker. 'To be sure Ned. Mrs.
MacStinger!'
Captain Cuttle, whose eyes were now as wide open as they could be, and the
knobs upon whose face were perfectly luminous, gave a long shrill whistle of
a most melancholy sound, and stood gazing at everybody in a state of
speechlessness.
'Overhaul that there again, Sol Gills, will you be so kind?' he said at
last.
'All these letters,' returned Uncle Sol, beating time with the forefinger of
his right hand upon the palm of his left, with a steadiness and distinctness
that might have done honour, even to the infallible chronometer in his
pocket, 'I posted with my own hand, and directed with my own hand, to
Captain Cuttle, at Mrs. MacStinger's, Number nine Brig Place.'
The Captain took his glazed hat off his hook, looked into it, put it on, and
sat down.
'Why, friends all,' said the Captain, staring round in the last state of