p his mind that it would be
agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate as to
lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he mentioned
to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on
together, and that he thought it would be a good thing if--politely, and
without any scene, or anything of that sort--they agreed that they were
the best fellows in the world, but were best apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who
was already sensible that he did not advance his daughter's happiness by
being constantly slighted in her presence, said 'Good, Henry! You are
my Pet's husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if
you wish it, good!' This arrangement involved the contingent advantage,
which perhaps Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs
Meagles were more liberal than before to their daughter, when their
communication was only with her and her young child: and that his high
spirit found itself better provided with money, without being under the
degrading necessity of knowing whence it came.

Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great
ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had
been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for
some time back. The occupation he set himself was to visit these with
all discretion and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he
had left a bill unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill,
and bring away such box or parcel.

With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his
pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least of his
difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he
pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them.
Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow
the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid
to know it, Mr Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner,
entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly
renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the
ground that they were 'all bosh.' Sometimes interpreters were called
in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as
instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse. On a
balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he lost much;
for, although he found no pro