l his entanglements were now reduced to these two.

Such is a full, frank, fair, free, ample, lucid, and luminous
explanation of the progress of affairs, which explanation was necessary
in order to make the reader fully understand the full meaning of what
follows.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

JACK'S TRIBULATIONS.--THEY RISE UP IN THE VERY FACE OF THE MOST
ASTONISHING GOOD FORTUNES.--FOR, WHAT IS LIKE A LEGACY?--AND THIS COMES
TO JACK!--SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING PER ANNUM!--BUT WHAT'S THE USE
OF IT ALL?--JACK COMES TO GRIEF!--WOE! SORROW! DESPAIR! ALL THE WIDOW!
--INFATUATION.--A MAD PROPOSAL.--A MADMAN, A LUNATIC, AN IDIOT, A MARCH
HARE, AND A HATTER, ALL ROLLED INTO ONE, AND THAT ONE THE LUCKY YET
UNFORTUNATE JACK.

Jack had been falling off more and more. I was taken up with the
O'Hallorans; he, with those two points between which he oscillated like
a pendulum; and our intercourse diminished, until at length days would
intervene without a meeting between us.

It was in the middle of June.

I had not seen Jack for more than a week.

Suddenly, I was reminded of him by a startling rumor that reached my
ears after every soul in the garrison and in the city had heard it. It
referred to Jack. It was nothing about the widow, nothing about Louie,
nothing about Marion, nothing about Miss Phillips.

It did not refer to duns.

He had not been nabbed by the sheriff.

He had not put an end to himself.

In short, the news was, that an uncle of his had died, and left him a
fortune of unknown proportions. _Omne iguotum pro mirifico_, of course;
and so up went Jack's fortune to twenty thousand a year. Jack had told
me about that uncle, and I had reason to know that it was at least six
or seven thousand; and, let me tell you, six or seven thousand pounds
per annum isn't to be laughed at.

So here was Jack--raised up in a moment--far above the dull level of
debt, and duns, and despair; raised to an upper and, I trust, a better
world, where swarms of duns can never arise, and bailiffs never come;
raised, my boy, to a region of serene delight, where, like the gods of
Epicurus, he might survey from his cloudless calm the darkness and the
gloom of the lower world. A fortune, by Jove! Seven thousand pounds
sterling a year! Hard cash! Why, the thing fairly took my breath away.
I sat down to grapple with the stupendous thought. Aha! where would the
duns be now? What would those miserable devils say now, that had been
badgeri