'Lord, how that clock would go!'
For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace
of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face
were the dial.
'But he's chockful of science,' he observed, waving his hook
towards the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em.
Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up
in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want
to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it
for you.'
It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's
reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his
philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and
inventing it.
'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a fine thing to understand 'em.
And yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which
is best. It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be
weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very
devil with: and never know how.'
Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion
(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind),
could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance
to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the
manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn
delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten
years.
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