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Fancy our horror when, on the crowd making way, we saw Tug pummelling away at the Honorable Master MacTurk! My dear Jemmy, who don't understand such things, pounced upon the two at once, and, with one hand tearing away Tug, sent him spinning back into the arms of his seconds, while, with the other, she clawed hold of Master MacTurk's red hair, and, as soon as she got her second hand free, banged it about his face and ears like a good one.
"You nasty--wicked--quarrelsome--aristocratic" (each word was a bang)--"aristocratic--oh! oh! oh!"--Here the words stopped; for what with the agitation, maternal solicitude, and a dreadful kick on the shins which, I am ashamed to say, Master MacTurk administered, my dear Jemmy could bear it no longer, and sunk fainting away in my arms.
DOWN AT BEULAH.
Although there was a regular cut between the next-door people and us, yet Tug and the Honorable Master MacTurk kept up their acquaintance over the back-garden wall, and in the stables, where they were fighting, making friends, and playing tricks from morning to night, during the holidays. Indeed, it was from young Mac that we first heard of Madame de Flicflac, of whom my Jemmy robbed Lady Kilblazes, as I before have related. When our friend the Baron first saw Madame, a very tender greeting passed between them; for they had, as it appeared, been old friends abroad. "Sapristie,"said the Baron, in his lingo, "que fais-tu ici, Amenaide?" "Et toi, mon pauvre Chicot," says she, "est-ce qu'on t'a mis a la retraite? Il parait que tu n'es plus General chez Franco--"CHUT!" says the Baron, putting his finger to his lips.
"What are they saying, my dear?" says my wife to Jemimarann, who had a pretty knowledge of the language by this time.
"I don't know what 'Sapristie' means, mamma; but the Baron asked Madame what she was doing here? and Madame said, 'And you, Chicot, you are no more a General at Franco.'--Have I not translated rightly, Madame?""Oui, mon chou, mon ange. Yase, my angel, my cabbage, quite right.
Figure yourself, I have known my dear Chicot dis twenty years.""Chicot is my name of baptism," says the Baron; "Baron Chicot de Punter is my name.""And being a General at Franco," says Jemmy, "means, I suppose, being a French General?""Yes, I vas," said he, "General Baron de Punter--n'est 'a pas, Amenaide?""Oh, yes!" said Madame Flicflac, and laughed; and I and Jemmy laughed out of politeness: and a pretty laughing matter it was, as you shall hear.
About this time my Jemmy became one of the Lady-Patronesses of that admirable institution, "The Washerwoman's-Orphans' Home;" Lady de Sudley was the great projector of it; and the manager and chaplain, the excellent and Reverend Sidney Slopper. His salary, as chaplain, and that of Doctor Leitch, the physician (both cousins of her ladyship's), drew away five hundred pounds from the six subscribed to the Charity: and Lady de Sudley thought a fete at Beulah Spa, with the aid of some of the foreign princes who were in town last year, might bring a little more money into its treasury.
A tender appeal was accordingly drawn up, and published in all the papers:--"APPEAL.
"BRITISH WASHERWOMAN'S-ORPHANS' HOME.
"The 'Washerwoman's-Orphans' Home' has now been established seven years: and the good which it has effected is, it may be confidently stated, INCALCULABLE. Ninety-eight orphan children of Washerwomen have been lodged within its walls. One hundred and two British Washerwomen have been relieved when in the last state of decay.
ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-EIGHT THOUSAND articles of male and female dress have been washed, mended, buttoned, ironed, and mangled in the Establishment. And, by an arrangement with the governors of the Foundling, it is hoped that THE BABY-LINEN OF THAT HOSPITALwill be confided to the British Washerwoman's Home!
"With such prospects before it, is it not sad, is it not lamentable to think, that the Patronesses of the Society have been compelled to reject the applications of no less than THREE THOUSAND EIGHTHUNDRED AND ONE BRITISH WASHERWOMEN, from lack of means for their support? Ladies of England! Mothers of England! to you we appeal.
Is there one of you that will not respond to the cry in behalf of these deserving members of our sex?
"It has been determined by the Ladies-Patronesses to give a fete at Beulah Spa, on Thursday, July 25; which will be graced with the first foreign and native TALENT; by the first foreign and native RANK; and where they beg for the attendance of every WASHERWOMAN'SFRIEND."
Her Highness the Princess of Schloppenzollernschwigmaringen, the Duke of Sacks-Tubbingen, His Excellency Baron Strumpff, His Excellency Lootf-Allee-Koolee-Bismillah-Mohamed-Rusheed-Allah, the Persian Ambassador, Prince Futtee-Jaw, Envoy from the King of Oude, His Excellency Don Alonzo di Cachachero-y-Fandango-y-Castanete, the Spanish Ambassador, Count Ravioli, from Milan, the Envoy of the Republic of Topinambo, and a host of other fashionables, promised to honor the festival: and their names made a famous show in the bills. Besides these, we had the celebrated band of Moscow-musiks, the seventy-seven Transylvanian trumpeters, and the famous Bohemian Minnesingers; with all the leading artists of London, Paris, the Continent, and the rest of Europe.
I leave you to fancy what a splendid triumph for the British Washerwoman's Home was to come off on that day. A beautiful tent was erected, in which the Ladies-Patronesses were to meet: it was hung round with specimens of the skill of the washerwomen's orphans; ninety-six of whom were to be feasted in the gardens, and waited on by the Ladies-Patronesses.
Well, Jemmy and my daughter, Madame de Flicflac, myself, the Count, Baron Punter, Tug, and Tagrag, all went down in the chariot and barouche-and-four, quite eclipsing poor Lady Kilblazes and her carriage-and-two.