Burlesques: Novels by Eminent Hands

by William Makepeace Thackeray

calling Jemmy her ladyship, and me your honor; ay, and your honoring and my

  ladyshipping even my man and the maid in the cab. I somehow felt all over quite

  melancholy at going away. "Here, my fine fellow," says I to the coachman, who

  was standing very respectful, holding his hat in one hand and Jemmy's jewel-case

  in the other�"Here, my fine chap," says I, "here's six shillings for you;" for I

  did not care for the money.

  "Six what?" says he.

  "Six shillings, fellow," shrieks Jemmy, "and twice as much as your fare."

  "Feller, marm!" says this insolent coachman. "Feller yourself, marm: do you

  think I'm a-going to kill my horses, and break my precious back, and bust my

  carriage, and carry you, and your kids, and your traps for six hog?" And with

  this the monster dropped his hat, with my money in it, and doubling his fist put

  it so very near my nose that I really thought he would have made it bleed. "My

  fare's heighteen shillings," says he, "hain't it?�hask hany of these gentlemen."

  "Why, it ain't more than seventeen-and-six," says one of the fourteen porters;

  "but if the gen'l'man IS a gen'l'man, he can't give no less than a suffering

  anyhow."

  I wanted to resist, and Jemmy screamed like a Turk; but, "Holloa!" says one.

  "What's the row?" says another. "Come, dub up!" roars a third. And I don't mind

  telling you, in confidence, that I was so frightened that I took out the

  sovereign and gave it. My man and Jemmy's maid had disappeared by this time:

  they always do when there's a robbery or a row going on.

  I was going after them. "Stop, Mr. Ferguson," pipes a young gentleman of about

  thirteen, with a red livery waistcoat that reached to his ankles, and every

  variety of button, pin, string, to keep it together. "Stop, Mr. Heff," says he,

  taking a small pipe out of his mouth, "and don't forgit the cabman."

  "What's your fare, my lad?" says I.

  "Why, let's see�yes�ho!�my fare's seven-and-thirty and eightpence eggs�acly."

  The fourteen gentlemen holding the luggage, here burst out and laughed very

  rudely indeed; and the only person who seemed disappointed was, I thought, the

  hackney-coachman. "Why, YOU rascal!" says Jemmy, laying hold of the boy, "do you

  want more than the coachman?"

  "Don't rascal ME, marm!" shrieks the little chap in return. "What's the coach to

  me? Vy, you may go in an omlibus for sixpence if you like; vy don't you go and

  buss it, marm? Vy did you call my cab, marm? Vy am I to come forty mile, from

  Scarlot Street, Po'tl'nd Street, Po'tl'nd Place, and not git my fare, marm?

  Come, give me a suffering and a half, and don't keep my hoss avaiting all day."

  This speech, which takes some time to write down, was made in about the fifth

  part of a second; and, at the end of it, the young gentleman hurled down his

  pipe, and, advancing towards Jemmy, doubled his fist, and seemed to challenge

  her to fight.

  My dearest girl now turned from red to be as pale as white Windsor, and fell

  into my arms. What was I to do? I called "Policeman!" but a policeman won't

  interfere in Thames Street; robbery is licensed there. What was I to do? Oh! my

  heart beats with paternal gratitude when I think of what my Tug did!

  As soon as this young cab-chap put himself into a fighting attitude, Master

  Tuggeridge Coxe�who had been standing by laughing very rudely, I thought�Master

  Tuggeridge Coxe, I say, flung his jacket suddenly into his mamma's face (the

  brass buttons made her start and recovered her a little), and, before we could

  say a word was in the ring in which we stood (formed by the porters, nine

  orangemen and women, I don't know how many newspaper-boys, hotel- cads, and

  old-clothesmen), and, whirling about two little white fists in the face of the

  gentleman in the red waistcoat, who brought up a great pair of black ones to

  bear on the enemy, was engaged in an instant.

  But la bless you! Tug hadn't been at Richmond School for nothing; and MILLED

  away one, two, right and left�like a little hero as he is, with all his dear

  mother's spirit in him. First came a crack which sent a long dusky white

  hat�that looked damp and deep like a well, and had a long black crape-rag

  twisted round it�first came a crack which sent this white hat spinning over the

  gentleman's cab and scattered among the crowd a vast number of things which the

  cabman kept in it,�such as a ball of string, a piece of candle, a comb, a

  whip-lash, a little warbler, a slice of bacon,

  The cabman seemed sadly ashamed of this display, but Tug gave him no time:

  another blow was planted on his cheekbone; and a third, which hit him straight

  on the nose, sent this rude cabman straight down to the ground.

  "Brayvo, my lord!" shouted all the people around.

  "I won't have no more, thank yer," said the little cabman, gathering himself up.

  "Give us over my fare, vil yer, and let me git away?"

  "What's your fare, NOW, you cowardly little thief?" says Tug.

  "Vy, then, two-and-eightpence," says he. "Go along,�you KNOW it is!" and

  two-and-eightpence he had; and everybody applauded Tug, and hissed the cab-boy,

  and asked Tug for something to drink. We heard the packet-bell ringing, and all

  run down the stairs to be in time.

  I now thought our troubles would soon be over; mine were, very nearly so, in one

  sense at least: for after Mrs. Coxe and Jemimarann, and Tug, and the maid, and

  valet, and valuables had been handed across, it came to my turn. I had often

  heard of people being taken up by a PLANK, but seldom of their being set down by

  one. Just as I was going over, the vessel rode off a little, the board slipped,

  and down I soused into the water. You might have heard Mrs. Coxe's shriek as far

  as Gravesend; it rung in my ears as I went down, all grieved at the thought of

  leaving her a disconsolate widder. Well, up I came again, and caught the brim of

  my beaver-hat�though I have heard that drowning men catch at straws:�I floated,

  and hoped to escape by hook or by crook; and, luckily, just then, I felt myself

  suddenly jerked by the waistband of my whites, and found myself hauled up in the

  air at the end of a boat-hook, to the sound of "Yeho! yeho! yehoi! yehoi!" and

  so I was dragged aboard. I was put to bed, and had swallowed so much water that

  it took a very considerable quantity of brandy to bring it to a proper mixture

  in my inside. In fact, for some hours I was in a very deplorable state.

  NOTICE TO QUIT.

  Well, we arrived at Boulogne; and Jemmy, after making inquiries, right and left,

  about the Baron, found that no such person was known there; and being bent, I

  suppose, at all events, on marrying her daughter to a lord, she determined to

  set off for Paris, where, as he had often said, he possessed a magnificent ��

  hotel he called it;�and I remember Jemmy being mightily indignant at the idea;

  but hotel, we found afterwards, means only a house in French, and this

  reconciled her. Need I describe the road from Boulogne to Paris? or need I

  describe that Capitol itself? Suffice it to say, that we made our appearance

  there, at "Murisse's Hotel," as became the family of Coxe Tuggeridge; and saw

  everything wor
th seeing in the metropolis in a week. It nearly killed me, to be

  sure; but, when you're on a pleasure-party in a foreign country, you must not

  mind a little inconvenience of this sort.

  Well, there is, near the city of Paris, a splendid road and row of trees,

  which�I don't know why�is called the Shandeleezy, or Elysian Fields, in French:

  others, I have heard, call it the Shandeleery; but mine I know to be the correct

  pronunciation. In the middle of this Shandeleezy is an open space of ground, and

  a tent where, during the summer, Mr. Franconi, the French Ashley, performs with

  his horses and things. As everybody went there, and we were told it was quite

  the thing, Jemmy agreed that we should go too; and go we did.

  It's just like Ashley's: there's a man just like Mr. Piddicombe, who goes round

  the ring in a huzzah-dress, cracking a whip; there are a dozen Miss Woolfords,

  who appear like Polish princesses, Dihannas, Sultannas, Cachuchas, and heaven

  knows what! There's the fat man, who comes in with the twenty-three dresses on,

  and turns out to be the living skeleton! There's the clowns, the sawdust, the

  white horse that dances a hornpipe, the candles stuck in hoops, just as in our

  own dear country.

  My dear wife, in her very finest clothes, with all the world looking at her, was

  really enjoying this spectacle (which doesn't require any knowledge of the

  language, seeing that the dumb animals don't talk it), when there came in,

  presently, "the great Polish act of the Sarmatian horse-tamer, on eight steeds,"

  which we were all of us longing to see. The horse-tamer, to music twenty miles

  an hour, rushed in on four of his horses, leading the other four, and skurried

  round the ring. You couldn't see him for the sawdust, but everybody was

  delighted, and applauded like mad. Presently, you saw there were only three

  horses in front: he had slipped one more between his legs, another followed, and

  it was clear that the consequences would be fatal, if he admitted any more. The

  people applauded more than ever; and when, at last, seven and eight were made to

  go in, not wholly, but sliding dexterously in and out, with the others, so that

  you did not know which was which, the house, I thought, would come down with

  applause; and the Sarmatian horse- tamer bowed his great feathers to the ground.

  At last the music grew slower, and he cantered leisurely round the ring;

  bending, smirking, seesawing, waving his whip, and laying his hand on his heart,

  just as we have seen the Ashley's people do. But fancy our astonishment when,

  suddenly, this Sarmatian horse-tamer, coming round with his four pair at a

  canter, and being opposite our box, gave a start, and a�hupp! which made all his

  horses stop stock- still at an instant.

  "Albert!" screamed my dear Jemmy: "Albert! Bahbahbah�baron!" The Sarmatian

  looked at her for a minute; and turning head over heels, three times, bolted

  suddenly off his horses, and away out of our sight.

  It was HIS EXCELLENCY THE BARON DE PUNTER!

  Jemmy went off in a fit as usual, and we never saw the Baron again; but we

  heard, afterwards, that Punter was an apprentice of Franconi's, and had run away

  to England, thinking to better himself, and had joined Mr. Richardson's army;

  but Mr. Richardson, and then London, did not agree with him; and we saw the last

  of him as he sprung over the barriers at the Tuggeridgeville tournament.

  "Well, Jemimarann," says Jemmy, in a fury, "you shall marry Tagrag; and if I

  can't have a baroness for a daughter, at least you shall be a baronet's lady."

  Poor Jemimarann only sighed: she knew it was of no use to remonstrate.

  Paris grew dull to us after this, and we were more eager than ever to go back to

  London: for what should we hear, but that that monster, Tuggeridge, of the

  City�old Tug's black son, forsooth!� was going to contest Jemmy's claim to the

  property, and had filed I don't know how many bills against us in Chancery!

  Hearing this, we set off immediately, and we arrived at Boulogne, and set off in

  that very same "Grand Turk" which had brought us to France.

  If you look in the bills, you will see that the steamers leave London on

  Saturday morning, and Boulogne on Saturday night; so that there is often not an

  hour between the time of arrival and departure. Bless us! bless us! I pity the

  poor Captain that, for twenty-four hours at a time, is on a paddle-box, roaring

  out, "Ease her! Stop her!" and the poor servants, who are laying out breakfast,

  lunch, dinner, tea, supper;�breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, supper again;�for

  layers upon layers of travellers, as it were; and most of all, I pity that

  unhappy steward, with those unfortunate tin-basins that he must always keep an

  eye over. Little did we know what a storm was brooding in our absence; and

  little were we prepared for the awful, awful fate that hung over our

  Tuggeridgeville property.

  Biggs, of the great house of Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick, was our man of

  business: when I arrived in London I heard that he had just set off to Paris

  after me. So we started down to Tuggeridgeville instead of going to Portland

  Place. As we came through the lodge- gates, we found a crowd assembled within

  them; and there was that horrid Tuggeridige on horseback, with a shabby-looking

  man, called Mr. Scapgoat, and his man of business, and many more. "Mr.

  Scapgoat," says Tuggeridge, grinning, and handing him over a sealed paper,

  "here's the lease; I leave you in possession, and wish you good morning."

  "In possession of what?" says the rightful lady of Tuggeridgeville, leaning out

  of the carriage-window. She hated black Tuggeridge, as she called him, like

  poison: the very first week of our coming to Portland Place, when he called to

  ask restitution of some plate which he said was his private property, she called

  him a base-born blackamoor, and told him to quit the house. Since then there had

  been law squabbles between us without end, and all sorts of writings, meetings,

  and arbitrations.

  "Possession of my estate of Tuggeridgeville, madam," roars he, "left me by my

  father's will, which you have had notice of these three weeks, and know as well

  as I do."

  "Old Tug left no will," shrieked Jemmy; "he didn't die to leave his estates to

  blackamoors�to negroes�to base-born mulatto story- tellers; if he did may I be

  ��-"

  "Oh, hush! dearest mamma," says Jemimarann. "Go it again, mother!" says Tug, who

  is always sniggering.

  "What is this business, Mr. Tuggeridge?" cried Tagrag (who was the only one of

  our party that had his senses). "What is this will?"

  "Oh, it's merely a matter of form," said the lawyer, riding up. "For heaven's

  sake, madam, be peaceable; let my friends, Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick,

  arrange with me. I am surprised that none of their people are here. All that you

  have to do is to eject us; and the rest will follow, of course."

  "Who has taken possession of this here property?" roars Jemmy, again.

  "My friend Mr. Scapgoat," said the lawyer.�Mr. Scapgoat grinned.

  "Mr. Scapgoat," said my wife, shaking her fist at him (for she is a woman of no

  small spirit
), "if you don't leave this ground I'll have you pushed out with

  pitchforks, I will�you and your beggarly blackamoor yonder." And, suiting the

  action to the word, she clapped a stable fork into the hands of one of the

  gardeners, and called another, armed with a rake, to his help, while young Tug

  set the dog at their heels, and I hurrahed for joy to see such villany so

  properly treated.

  "That's sufficient, ain't it?" said Mr. Scapgoat, with the calmest air in the

  world. "Oh, completely," said the lawyer. "Mr. Tuggeridge, we've ten miles to

  dinner. Madam, your very humble servant." And the whole posse of them rode away.

  LAW LIFE ASSURANCE.

  We knew not what this meant, until we received a strange document from Higgs, in

  London�which begun, "Middlesex to wit. Samuel Cox, late of Portland Place, in

  the city of Westminster, in the said county, was attached to answer Samuel

  Scapgoat, of a plea, wherefore, with force and arms, he entered into one

  messuage, with the appurtenances, which John Tuggeridge, Esq., demised to the

  said Samuel Scapgoat, for a term which is not yet expired, and ejected him." And

  it went on to say that "we, with force of arms, viz, with swords, knives, and

  staves, had ejected him." Was there ever such a monstrous falsehood? when we did

  but stand in defence of our own; and isn't it a sin that we should have been

  turned out of our rightful possessions upon such a rascally plea?

  Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick had evidently been bribed; for would you believe

  it?�they told us to give up possession at once, as a will was found, and we

  could not defend the action. My Jemmy refused their proposal with scorn, and

  laughed at the notion of the will: she pronounced it to be a forgery, a vile

  blackamoor forgery; and believes, to this day, that the story of its having been

  made thirty years ago, in Calcutta, and left there with old Tug's papers, and

  found there, and brought to England, after a search made by order of Tuggeridge

  junior, is a scandalous falsehood.

  Well, the cause was tried. Why need I say anything concerning it? What shall I

  say of the Lord Chief Justice, but that he ought to be ashamed of the wig he

  sits in? What of Mr. �� and Mr. ��, who exerted their eloquence against justice

  and the poor? On our side, too, was no less a man than Mr. Serjeant Binks, who,

  ashamed I am, for the honor of the British bar, to say it, seemed to have been

  bribed too: for he actually threw up his case! Had he behaved like Mr. Mulligan,

  his junior�and to whom, in this humble way, I offer my thanks�all might have

  been well. I never knew such an effect produced, as when Mr. Mulligan, appearing

  for the first time in that court, said, "Standing here upon the pidestal of

  secred Thamis; seeing around me the arnymints of a profission I rispict; having

  before me a vinnerable judge, and an enlightened jury�the counthry's glory, the

  netion's cheap defender, the poor man's priceless palladium: how must I

  thrimble, my lard, how must the blush bejew my cheek�"(somebody cried out, "O

  CHEEKS!" In the court there was a dreadful roar of laughing; and when order was

  established, Mr. Mulligan continued:)�"My lard, I heed them not; I come from a

  counthry accustomed to opprission, and as that counthry�yes, my lard, THAT

  IRELAND�(do not laugh, I am proud of it)�is ever, in spite of her tyrants,

  green, and lovely, and beautiful: my client's cause, likewise, will rise

  shuperior to the malignant imbecility�I repeat, the MALIGNANT IMBECILITY�of

  those who would thrample it down; and in whose teeth, in my client's name, in my

  counthry's�ay, and MY OWN�I, with folded arrums, hurl a scarnful and eternal

  defiance!"

  "For heaven's sake, Mr. Milligan"�("MULLIGAN, ME LARD," cried my

  defender)�"Well, Mulligan, then, be calm, and keep to your brief."

  Mr. Mulligan did; and for three hours and a quarter, in a speech crammed with