So no more, dear Ned, from your true friend, Solomon Gills.' The Captain took a long breath, and then read these words written below: '"The boy Rob, well recommended, as I told you, from Dombey's House.

If all else should come to the hammer, take care, Ned, of the little Midshipman."' To convey to posterity any idea of the manner in which the Captain, after turning this letter over and over, and reading it a score of times, sat down in his chair, and held a court-martial on the subject in his own mind, would require the united genius of all the great men, who, discarding their own untoward days, have determined to go down to posterity, and have never got there.

At first the Captain was too much confounded and distressed to think of anything but the letter itself; and even when his thoughts began to glance upon the various attendant facts, they might, perhaps, as well have occupied themselves with their former theme, for any light they reflected on them.

In this state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder before the court, and no one else, found it a great relief to decide, generally, that he was an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly expressed in his visage, that Rob remonstrated.
'Oh, don't, Captain!' cried the Grinder.

'I wonder how you can! what have I done to be looked at, like that ?' 'My lad,' said Captain Cuttle, 'don't you sing out afore you're hurt.
And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.' 'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob.
'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride easy.
With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him' and the necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair as became a man in his relations with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go down and examine the premises, and to keep the Grinder with him.