"Not precisely--though I would not like to trust him in the hands of a designing female. His besetting weakness turns on the point of the regeneration of mankind. Forty or fifty years ago he would have been a follower of Johanna Southcote. He subscribed liberally to Owen's schemes, and was within an ace of turning out with Thom of Canterbury. Incredible as it may appear, he actually was for a time a regular and accepted Mormonite." "You don't mean to say so?" "Fact, I assure you, upon my honour! But for a swindle that Joe Smith tried to perpetrate about the discounting of a bill, Peter Pettigrew might at this moment have been a leading saint in the temple of Nauvoo, or whatever else they call the capital of that polygamous and promiscuous persuasion." "You amaze me. How any man of common sense--" "That's just the point. Where common sense ends, Uncle Pettigrew begins. Give him a mere thread of practicability, and he will arrive at a sound conclusion. Envelope him in the mist of theory, and he will walk headlong over a precipice." "Why, Jack," said I, "you seem to have improved in your figures of speech since you joined the army. That last sentence was worth preservation. But I don't clearly understand you yet. What is his present phase, which seems to stand in the way of your prospects?" "Can't you guess? What is the most absurd feature of the present time?" "That," said I, "is a very difficult question. There's Free Trade, and the proposed Exhibition--both of them absurd enough, if you look to their ultimate tendency. Then there are Sir Charles Wood's Budget, and the new Reform Bill, and the Encumbered Estates Act, and the whole rubbish of the Cabinet, which they have neither sense to suppress nor courage to carry through. Upon my word, Jack, it would be impossible for me to answer your question satisfactorily." "What do you think of the Peace Congress?" asked Wilkinson. "As Palmerston does," said I; "remarkably meanly. But why do you put that point? Surely Mr Pettigrew has not become a disciple of the blatant blacksmith?" "Read that, and judge for yourself," said Wilkinson, handing me over a letter. I read as follows:--