`Is that your penitence?' cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.
`Why how can I go and fetch him when I don't know where to go?' whimpered the baited Rob. `How can you be so unreasonable?'
`Did Mr. Gills say when he should be home?' asked Florence.
`Yes, Miss,' replied Rob, with another application of his knuckles to his hair. `He said he should be home early in the afternoon; in about a couple of hours from now, Miss.'
`Is he very anxious about his nephew?' inquired Susan.
`Yes, Miss,' returned Rob, preferring to address himself to Florence and slighting Nipper; `I should say he was very much so. He ain't indoors, Miss, not a quarter of an hour together. He can't settle in one place five minutes. He goes about, like a--just like a stray,' said Rob, stooping to get a glimpse of the pigeons through the window, and checking himself, with his fingers half-way to his mouth, on the verge of another whistle.
`Do you know a friend of Mr. Gills, called Captain Cuttle?' inquired Florence, after a moment's reflection.
`Him with a hook, Miss?' rejoined Rob, with an illustrative twist of his left hand. `Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.'
`Has he not been here since?' asked Susan.
`No, Miss,' returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.
`Perhaps Walter's uncle has gone there, Susan,' observed Florence, turning to her.
`To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?' interposed Rob; `no, he's not gone there, Miss. Because he left particular word that if Captain Cuttle called, I should tell him how surprised he was, not to have seen him yesterday, and should make him stop till he came back.'
`Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?' asked Florence.
Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment book on the shop desk, read the address aloud.
Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron's secret charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they should go to Captain Cuttle's house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of the absence of any tidings of the Son and Heir; and bring him, if they could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were appointed arbitrator of the arguments.
In fine, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back. Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part whatever in its production.