“Talking of?” resumed the General, “why, the wedding, to be sure. What else should I be talking of? You’re quite prepared, I suppose. I’ve arranged it all with Blanche; she cried and all that, but _I_ know the sex, Charlie, and _I_ could see--zounds, sir! she’s _de_-lighted. Never was such an arrangement--keeps all the money together, fulfils everyone’s intentions. What?--and then it’s been such a long attachment, ever since you were both children, corals and long petticoats. Petticoats! How d’ye mean?” “But, Uncle Baldwin,” pleaded Charlie, with some difficulty getting in a word edgeways, “don’t you think all this is somewhat premature?” “Premature! what the devil?” replied the General--“zounds, sir! not at all premature; quite the contrary, been put off too long, in fact. Never mind, better late than never. These things should be done out of hand. Why, sir, when I was at Cheltenham in ’25, the very year of that claret, by the way,” pointing to the empty magnum, “there was a handsome widow wanted to marry me at twelve hours’ notice. Did I ever tell you how I got off, Charlie? ’Gad, sir, Mulligatawney, of the Civil Service, got me out of the town in a return hearse; but even death couldn’t part us, my boy--zounds! she followed me to Bath, and I was laid up on the second-floor of the York House with the scarlet fever--_the scarlet fever!_ and I was as well as you are--till we starved her out; and when they said I was disfigured for life she gave in.” The General chuckled till the tears came into his eyes; then, recollecting his moral was somewhat anti-matrimonial, checked himself into supernatural gravity, and resumed on the other tack. “But marriage is a respectable state, Charlie; there’s nothing like it, so Mulligatawney tells me, to sober a man. Marriage, Charlie,” said the General, oracularly, with a solemn shake of the head, “marriage is like that empty decanter. It comes in sparkling and blushing, like sunrise on a May morning. What?--You draw the cork, and the first glass is heaven upon earth--that’s the honeymoon; then you fill another--same flavour, but not quite equal to the first. Never mind, try again; so you keep sipping and sipping, to analyse, if you can, the real taste of the beverage, and before you satisfy yourself you come to the end of the bottle; then, sir, when you get to the bottom you can see through it, and you find how empty it is! Not that I mean exactly that,” said the General, again catching himself up, as he found that his metaphor, having taken a wrong turn, had led to a somewhat unexpected conclusion. “But we can’t stop here all night,” added he; “so tell me, my boy, when I may begin to send out invitations for the breakfast.”