"Nonsense!" I replied, for I had not seen him yet, as he had fallen into light sleep after painful journey, "you have caught the infection of his lowness, mother. 'However bad the case is, never pull long faces,' as you used to sing to me, when I got caned." But when I went to look at Uncle Bill, that night, as he lay fast asleep upon his little narrow bed--for nothing would induce him to go into a four-poster--I felt very much afraid that dear mother was too right. I never should have guessed, that this could be my Uncle Bill, of whom I had such playful memories, and to whose buoyant spirits, and frolicsome nature, nothing had ever been known to come amiss. The great frame was there, and the big tarry hands, and the brown wrists tattoed with a true lover's knot, and a Union Jack, and blue anchors. And I still could descry the short stubby nose, which used to give such a merry lift to his mouth, and the scar on his cheek, that filled up when he laughed, as to my recollection he was generally doing. For if ever there had been a man who was fond of his joke, it was my Uncle William. But, alas! there were very few more for him now. In the morning, I carried his bit of breakfast up, as my mother had arranged it on a little tea-tray; but he took a long time to make out who I was, though my mother, of course, had said a great deal about me. "Tommy? What Tommy? I remember lots of Tommies;" he said, with a pleasant smile still on his face, although it was so gray and wasted; "there was Tommy, the cook's mate on board the _Saucy Lass_, and Tommy the cabin-boy, in the _Erysipelas_, and Tommy the cheating old nigger at Rio, and Tommy that had the dodge for catching flying fish, and Tommy----" "No, sir, no; your own nephew Tommy. Tommy Upmore, that used to be a little boy at the soap-works, when you came back from sea, and you tossed him through the ceiling, and his head stuck fast. But you are not to talk; you must only think about it." He obeyed me, like a child, looking at me now and then, as if to refresh his memory, while I held the tea-cup to his lips, and put some buttered toast into his mouth, between whiles. And the great jaws, that used to lift a kitchen-table, could scarcely crush the soft toast, without the tea to help them. "Mother will come in, and sit with you now," I said, when he had eaten as much as he could manage; "and at eleven o'clock, you will have a bowl of soup, and a glass of port wine; and after that, you go to sleep. We are not going to bother you with any doctor, at least, until the afternoon. And then perhaps Dr. Flebotham, a very clever man, who almost saved my dear father's life, will look in, to have a little chat with you."