"What did the venerable Peter mean by that impressive farewell?" said I, after the excellent old man had departed, shaking his head mournfully as he went.
"O, nothing at all," said Jack; "only the Niersteiner has been rather too potent for him. Have you any sticking-plaster about you? I have damaged my knuckles a little on the _os frontis_ of that eloquent pacificator."
Next morning I was awoke about ten o'clock by Jack, who came rushing into my room.
"Uncle Peter; and, what is far worse, he has taken Miss Latchley with him!"
However, it was perfectly true. On inquiry we found that the enamored pair had left at six in the morning.
"Well, Jack," said I, "any tidings of Uncle Peter?" as Wilkinson entered my official apartment in London, six weeks after the dissolution of the Congress.
"Why, yes--and the case is rather worse than I supposed," replied Jack despondingly.
"You don't mean to say that he has married that infernal woman in pantaloons?"
"Not quite so bad as that, but very nearly. She has carried him off to her den; and what she may make of him there, it is quite impossible to predict."
"Her den? Has she actually inveigled him to America?"
"Not at all. These kind of women have stations established over the whole face of the earth."
"I shall tell you. In the course of my inquiries, which, you are aware, were rather extensive, I chanced to fall in with a Yarmouth Bloater."
"I beg your pardon--I meant to say a Plymouth Brother. Now, these fellows are a sort of regular kidnappers, who lie in wait to catch up any person of means and substance: they don't meddle with paupers, for, as you are aware, they share their property in common: and it occurred to me rather forcibly, that by means of my friend, who was a regular trapping missionary, I might learn something about my uncle. It cost me an immensity of brandy to elicit the information; but at last I succeeded in bringing out the fact, that my uncle is at this moment the inmate of an Agapedome in the neighbourhood of Southampton, and that the Latchley is his appointed keeper."
"An Agapedome!--what the mischief is that?"
"You may well ask," said Jack; "but I won't give it a coarser name. However, from all I can learn, it is as bad as a Mormonite institution."