cruel Uncle. I
had taken every disagreeable feature of face and body that I had
beheld in another human, or in a picture, or had read of in the tales
of that remarkable Mr. Dickens, who could so paint in words a
monstrous person to come when the lights are out to haunt the
darkness, and had carefully patched them one upon another so as to
make them into an ideal of an old Uncle of great wickedness. On that
very ship itself I had beheld a man, who came upon the lower deck from
the engine, who had but one eye and a great scar where that other eye
should have been placed. Immediately my image of the General Robert
Carruthers lost one of the wicked eyes I had given him from out the
head of the stepfather who did so cruelly stare at the poor young
David Copperfield, and became a man with only one eye which still held
the malevolence that was hurled at that small David. And with this
squat, crooked, evil image of the General Robert Carruthers in my
heart I alighted from the train into the City of Hayesville, which is
the capital of the great American State of Harpeth. The black man had
swung himself off with my bags and that of the beautiful Madam
Whitworth, who with me was the last of the passengers to descend from
the steps of the car.

"My dear Jeff!" exclaimed my so lovely new friend as she raised her
veil for a very seemly kiss from a tall and quite broad gentleman with
a very wide hat and long mustachios that dropped far down with want of
wax that it is the custom to use for their elevation in France, as I
well know from my father's wrathy remarks to his valet if he made a
too great use of it upon his. "And this is General Carruthers' nephew
who came down on the train with me. My husband, Mr. Carruthers of Grez
and Bye!" with which introduction she confronted me with the
gentleman.

"Glad to know you, young man; glad to know you," he answered as he
took my hand and gave it an embrace of such vigor that I almost made
outcry. "There's the General over there looking for you. Come to see
us sometime. Come on, Patsy!"

"Good-bye, Mr. Carruthers. I'll see you soon," said the beautiful
Madam Whitworth as she held out her hand to me. "Do it now; there
comes the General! Quick, kiss my hand!"

I bent and did as she bade me and as I had promised her to do, and as
I raised myself she slipped away quickly after her husband with a
salutation of great coolness to a person over my shoulder and a "How
do you do, General Carruther