[Illustration: C]Conducive as Uncle Peter's suggestion might have been to
the restoration of peace in the family of our hero, it was decided to be
impracticable by several medical gentlemen, who were consulted upon the
matter. After sundry scenes of maternal and grandmaternal distress,
Agamemnon succeeded in obtaining the victory, and the heir was vaccinated
accordingly with the most favourable result. The pustule rose, budded,
blossomed, and disappeared, exactly as it ought to have done, and a few
days saw the health of the infant Applebite insured in the office of Dr.
Jenner.
Scarcely had the anxious parents been relieved by this auspicious
termination, when that painful disorder which renders pork unwholesome and
children fractious, made its appearance. Had we the plague-pen of the
romancist of Rookwood, we would revel in the detail of this domesticated
pestilence--we would picture the little sufferer in the hour of its
agony--and be as minute as Mr. Hume in our calculations of its feverish
pulsations; but our quill was moulted by the dove, not plucked from the
wing of the carrion raven.
And now, gentle reader, we come to a point of this history which we are
assured has been anxiously looked forward to by you--a point at which the
reader, already breathless with expectation, has fondly anticipated being
suffocated with excitement. We may, without vanity, lay claim to
originality, for we have introduced a new hero into the world of
fiction--a baby three months old--we have traced his happy parents from
the ball-room to St. George's church; from St. George's church to the
ball-room; thence to the doctor's; and from thence to