'Why, I ask you, as a feeling heart,' said the Captain, dropping his voice, 'why should she know? why should she be made to know, until such time as there wam't any help for it? She took to old Sol Gills, did that sweet creetur, with a kindness, with a affability, with a - what's the good of saying so? you know her.'
'I should hope so,' chuckled Mr Toots, with a conscious blush that suffused his whole countenance.
'And you come here from her?' said the Captain.
'I should think so,' chuckled Mr Toots.
'Then all I need observe, is,' said the Captain, 'that you know a angel, and are chartered a angel.'
Mr Toots instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the favour of his friendship.
'Upon my word and honour,' said Mr Toots, earnestly, 'I should be very much obliged to you if you'd improve my acquaintance I should like to know you, Captain, very much. I really am In want of a friend, I am. Little Dombey was my friend at old Blimber's, and would have been now, if he'd have lived. The Chicken,' said Mr Toots, in a forlorn whisper, 'is very well - admirable in his way - the sharpest man perhaps in the world; there's not a move he isn't up to, everybody says so - but I don't know - he's not everything. So she is an angel, Captain. If there is an angel anywhere, it's Miss Dombey. That's what I've always said. Really though, you know,' said Mr Toots, 'I should be very much obliged to you if you'd cultivate my acquaintance.'
Captain Cuttle received this proposal in a polite manner, but still without committing himself to its acceptance; merely observing, 'Ay, ay, my lad. We shall see, we shall see;' and reminding Mr Toots of his immediate mission, by inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour of that visit.
'Why the fact is,' replied Mr Toots, 'that it's the young woman I come from. Not Miss Dombey - Susan, you know.
The Captain nodded his head once, with a grave expression of face indicative of his regarding that young woman with serious respect.
'And I'll tell you how it happens,' said Mr Toots. 'You know, I go and call sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you know, but I happen to be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I find myself there, why - why I call.'
'Nat'rally,' observed the Captain.
adj. 负债的,受惠的