"Well, then, I do," said his benefactor; "I was determined to find it out, because the name is so uncommon. Hard work I had, though. Merchant, to whom he was clerk, dead. Son in the West Indies. Wrote. No answer for some time--then not satisfactory. Obliged to wait till he came back. Long talk. No use. Well, well. Tell you all about it another day. Cut it short now. Found out a person at last who was intimate friend and fellow-clerk with your father. Made all right. Went down into the north. Got his register." "Really, sir," stammered Jeremiah, "it was very kind of you, but I am sorry you should have given yourself so much trouble; but I'm sure, if I have any poor relations that I can be of service to in employing them, now that your bounty has put me in the way of doing well, I shall be very glad, though I never did hear talk of any." "No, Master Jeremiah," said the eccentric old gentleman, "you have no poor relations now, nor ever had; but your father had a good-for-nothing elder brother, who left home at an early age, after your grandmother's death, and was enticed to go abroad by fair promises, which were not fulfilled. So, not having anything agreeable to write about, he didn't write at all, like a young scamp as he was, and when the time came that he had something pleasant to communicate, it was too late, as his father was no more, and his only brother (your father) was gone nobody knew where. Well, to make a short story of it, that chap, your uncle, was knocked about in the world, sometimes up and sometimes down, but at last found himself pretty strong upon his legs, and then made up his mind to come back to Old England, where he found nobody to care for him, and went wandering hither and thither, spending his time at watering-places, and so on, for several years." "And pray, sir," inquired Jeremiah, as his respected guest paused, "have you any idea what became of him?" "Yes, I have," replied the little gentleman, smiling significantly at his host and hostess. "One day he arrived in a smallish town, very like this, and terribly low-spirited he was, for he'd been ill some time before, and was fretting himself to think that he had been toiling to scrape money together, and was without children or kindred to leave it to. No very pleasant reflection that, my worthy Wags, let me tell you! Well, he ordered dinner, for form's sake, at the inn, and then went yawning about the room; and then he took his stand at the window, and, looking across the road, he saw the name of Wag over a shop-door, and then----You know all the rest! The fact is, I am a Wag, and, Jeremiah Wag, you are my nephew, and you, my dear Mrs Wag, are my niece, and so let us be merry Wags together."