“It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly rubber, my dear Madam,” says the Major, “and also over what used to be called in my young times—­in the salad days of Jemmy Jackman—­the social glass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers.”

My remark was—­I confess I made it with the deepest and artfullest of intentions—­“I wish our dear boy had heard them!”

“Are you serious Madam?” asked the Major starting and turning full round.

“Why not Major?”

“Madam” says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs, “they shall be written for him.”

“Ah!  Now you speak” I says giving my hands a pleased clap.  “Now you are in a way out of moping Major!”

“Between this and my holidays—­I mean the dear boy’s” says the Major turning up his other cuff, “a good deal may be done towards it.”

“Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of it.”

“I’ll begin,” says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, “to-morrow.”

My dear the Major was another man in three days and he was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or whether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you.

CHAPTER II—­HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW WORDS

I have the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman.  I esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that ever lived,—­by the name of JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER,—­and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs. Emma Lirriper, of Eighty-one, Norfolk Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

It is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first Christmas holidays.  Suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house with two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. Lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the Play, where we were all three admirably entertained.

Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and honoured sex—­whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, I will only here designate by the initials E. L.—­that I add this record to the bundle of papers with which our, in a most distinguished degree, remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before re-consigning the same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper’s little bookcase.

Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham’s, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper’s.  If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that the name is borne by JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER.