狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》第25章Part 8

'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any lady, except either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and asks for Cap'en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name known, nor never heard of here; observe them orders, will you?'
'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.
'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd read in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia, emigrating, along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all swore never to come back no more.
Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain Cuttle promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed him, yawning, to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the chamber of Solomon Gills.
What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or how often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers, and sought safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the fatigues attendant on this means of self-preservation, the Captain curtained the glass door of communication between the shop and parlour, on the inside; fitted a key to it from the bunch that had been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial in the wall. The advantage of this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the Captain instantly slipped into his garrison, locked himself up, and took a secret observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm, the Captain instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street were so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their appearance, that the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and out all day long.
Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the general idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not be bestowed upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also ticketed a few attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the window to the great astonishment of the public.
After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by the instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars at night, through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the little back parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a kind of property in them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to have an interest in the Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public Companies; and felt bound to read the quotations of the Funds every day, though he was unable to make out, on any principle of navigation, what the figures meant, and could have very well dispensed with the fractions. Florence, the Captain waited on, with his strange news of Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession of the Midshipman; but she was away from home. So the Captain sat himself down in his altered station of life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and losing count of time, as men do when great changes come upon them, thought musingly of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger herself, as among the things that had been.

“沒有，沒有，”卡特爾船長臉色發白，聽着街道上走過的腳步聲之後說，“不過，我的孩子，你得記住：除了那天你看到的那兩位小姐外，如果有什麼女人跑來打聽卡特爾船長的話，你一定要對她說，這裏根本不知道有這樣一個人，從來也沒聽說起過他。你要遵照這些命令行事，聽見沒有？”
“我會提防的，船長，”羅布回答道。
“你可以說——如果你願意的話，”船長遲疑不定地說，“你在報紙上唸到一則消息，有一個同姓的船長已經移居到澳大利亞去了，同去的還有整船的人，他們全都發誓再也不回來了。”
羅布點點頭，表示明白這些指示；卡特爾船長答應如果他遵從這些命令的話，那麼他就把他教養成一個有出息的人，然後就把直打呵欠的孩子打發到櫃檯下面去睡覺，他自己則上樓到所羅門·吉爾斯的房間裏去。
第二天，每當一頂女帽從窗口走過的時候，船長就多麼膽戰心驚地害怕，或者他多少次從店鋪中衝出，避開想象中的麥克斯廷傑們，到頂樓中尋求安全，這一切都是不能用筆墨形容的。但是爲了避免採取這種自衛方式所產生的疲勞，船長就在店鋪通接客廳之間的玻璃門裏面掛上簾子，從老人交給他的一串鑰匙中間取出一把套在門上，又在牆上挖了一個用來偵察的小洞。這套防禦工事的好處是顯而易見的。船長一看到女帽出現，就立即溜進他的堡壘，把自己鎖在裏面，然後偷偷地觀察敵人。當發現這是一場虛驚時，船長就立即溜了出來。街上的女帽非常之多，它們每一出現又必定要引起一場驚慌，所以船長几乎整天都不斷地溜進溜出。
不過在這使人疲勞不堪的緊張活動中間，卡特爾船長倒找到時間來檢點存貨。在檢點過程中，他得到一個概念（對羅布來說，這是很累人的），就是：貨品擦得愈久、愈亮就愈好。然後他在幾個外表引人注目的物品上貼上標籤，瞎估亂猜地標上價格，從十五先令到五十鎊。他把它們陳列在櫥窗中，使公衆大爲驚奇。
卡特爾船長完成了這些改進後，被包圍在儀器中間，開始覺得自己也跟科學沾邊了。夜間，當他上牀睡覺之前，在小後客廳中抽着菸斗的時候，他通過天窗仰望羣星，彷彿它們已成爲他的財產似的。作爲一個在城市裏做生意的人，他開始對市長、郡長和同業公會發生了興趣；他還覺得每天應當閱讀有價證券行情表，雖然不能根據航海的原理看懂這些數字的意義；對他來說，沒有那些小數也是完全可以的。卡特爾船長在佔有了海軍軍官候補生之後，就立即帶着所爾舅舅的奇怪消息前去拜訪弗洛倫斯，但是她卻已經離開家了。這樣，船長就在他的新的生活崗位上安定下來，除了磨工羅布之外，沒有別的伴侶。他就像生活中發生了極大變化的人們一樣，記不清日子是怎麼過去的；他默默地思念着沃爾特，思念着所羅門·吉爾斯，甚至在回顧往事時，還想到那位麥克斯廷傑太太。