"And you must make a fine gentleman of Tug there, and send him to a fine school.""And I give you my word," says Tug, "I'm as ignorant a chap as ever lived.""You're an insolent saucebox," says Jemmy; "you've learned that at your fine school.""I've learned something else, too, ma'am; ask the boys if Ihaven't," grumbles Tug.
"You hawk your daughter about, and just escape marrying her to a swindler.""And drive off poor Orlando," whimpered my girl.
"Silence! Miss," says Jemmy, fiercely.
"You insult the man whose father's property you inherited, and bring me into this prison, without hope of leaving it: for he never can help us after all your bad language." I said all this very smartly; for the fact is, my blood was up at the time, and Idetermined to rate my dear girl soundly.
"Oh! Sammy," said she, sobbing (for the poor thing's spirit was quite broken), "it's all true; I've been very, very foolish and vain, and I've punished my dear husband and children by my follies, and I do so, so repent them!" Here Jemimarann at once burst out crying, and flung herself into her mamma's arms, and the pair roared and sobbed for ten minutes together. Even Tug looked queer:
and as for me, it's a most extraordinary thing, but I'm blest if seeing them so miserable didn't make me quite happy.--I don't think, for the whole twelve months of our good fortune, I had ever felt so gay as in that dismal room in the Fleet, where I was locked up.
Poor Orlando Crump came to see us every day; and we, who had never taken the slightest notice of him in Portland Place, and treated him so cruelly that day at Beulah Spa, were only too glad of his company now. He used to bring books for my girl, and a bottle of sherry for me; and he used to take home Jemmy's fronts and dress them for her; and when locking-up time came, he used to see the ladies home to their little three-pair bedroom in Holborn, where they slept now, Tug and all. "Can the bird forget its nest?"Orlando used to say (he was a romantic young fellow, that's the truth, and blew the flute and read Lord Byron incessantly, since he was separated from Jemimarann). "Can the bird, let loose in eastern climes, forget its home? Can the rose cease to remember its beloved bulbul?--Ah, no! Mr. Cox, you made me what I am, and what I hope to die--a hairdresser. I never see a curling-irons before I entered your shop, or knew Naples from brown Windsor. Did you not make over your house, your furniture, your emporium of perfumery, and nine-and-twenty shaving customers, to me? Are these trifles? Is Jemimarann a trifle? if she would allow me to call her so. Oh, Jemimarann, your Pa found me in the workhouse, and made me what I am. Conduct me to my grave, and I never, never shall be different!" When he had said this, Orlando was so much affected, that he rushed suddenly on his hat and quitted the room.
Then Jemimarann began to cry too. "Oh, Pa!" said she, "isn't he--isn't he a nice young man?"
"I'm HANGED if he ain't," says Tug. "What do you think of his giving me eighteenpence yesterday, and a bottle of lavender-water for Mimarann?""He might as well offer to give you back the shop at any rate,"says Jemmy.
"What! to pay Tuggeridge's damages? My dear, I'd sooner die than give Tuggeridge the chance."FAMILY BUSTLE.
