THE CONGRESS AND THE AGAPEDOME. A TALE OF PEACE AND LOVE. CHAPTER I. If I were to commence my story by stating, in the manner of the military biographers, that Jack Wilkinson was as brave a man as ever pushed a bayonet into the brisket of a Frenchman, I should be telling a confounded lie, seeing that, to the best of my knowledge, Jack never had the opportunity of attempting practical phlebotomy. I shall content myself with describing him as one of the finest and best-hearted fellows that ever held her Majesty's commission; and no one who is acquainted with the general character of the officers of the British army, will require a higher eulogium. Jack and I were early cronies at school; but we soon separated, having been born under the influence of different planets. Mars, who had the charge of Jack, of course devoted him to the army; Jupiter, who was bound to look after my interests, could find nothing better for me than a situation in the Woods and Forests, with a faint chance of becoming in time a subordinate Commissioner--that is, provided the wrongs of Ann Hicks do not precipitate the abolition of the whole department. Ten years elapsed before we met; and I regret to say that, during that interval, neither of us had ascended many rounds of the ladder of promotion. As was most natural, I considered my own case as peculiarly hard, and yet Jack's was perhaps harder. He had visited with his regiment, in the course of duty, the Cape, the Ionian Islands, Gibraltar, and the West Indies. He had caught an ague in Canada, and had been transplanted to the north of Ireland by way of a cure; and yet he had not gained a higher rank in the service than that of Lieutenant. The fact is, that Jack was poor, and his brother officers as tough as though they had been made of caoutchouc. Despite the varieties of climate to which they were exposed, not one of them would give up the ghost; even the old colonel, who had been twice despaired of, recovered from the yellow fever, and within a week after was lapping his claret at the mess-table as jollily as if nothing had happened. The regiment had a bad name in the service: they called it, I believe, "the Immortals."