I found my aunt wonderfully cheerful. She smiled when I told her of the hindrances my uncle had met with, and declared that we should even yet see him give up his whimsy and return to his proper business. This opinion, however, I scouted, and when, after about a week, we received a letter from him, I felt sure as I broke the seal that it was a last message penned on the eve of sailing. It proved otherwise, being a brief note to say that the crew was complete, through the good offices of the obliging Chick, but that the departure was once more delayed, my uncle being confined to his room at the _Cod and Lobster_ by a slight attack of the gout. My aunt was for starting at once to attend upon her husband, but this I dissuaded her from, saying that by the time she arrived in London the attack might have passed and the ship sailed, and she would have made the long journey for nothing, besides wasting money. However, within three days comes another letter, in which my uncle wrote that he was much worse, and desired me to come to him post haste. This letter gave my aunt much concern, but on the whole pleased her mightily, for she was sure I had been sent for to bring my uncle home, and she went about with that triumphant look which a good lady wears when she sees events answer to her predictions. I set off by the coach next morning. When I opened the door of my uncle's room he fairly screamed at me: "Take care! for mercy's sake take care!" I stepped back and looked about me in alarm, seeking for some great peril against which I must be on my guard. But I saw nothing but my uncle sitting in a big chair, with one leg propped on a stool, and his foot swathed in huge wrappings of flannel. "Take care!" he cried again with a groan as I approached. "Mind my toe! Keep a yard away; not an inch nearer, or I shall yell the house down." At that time I was astonished beyond measure at my uncle's vehemence; but having since then suffered from the gout myself--'tis in our family: my grandfather was a martyr to it, I have been told--I know the terror which a movement, even a gust of air, inspires in the sufferer.