“Back comes the telegraph with the sign, ‘All right.’

“‘Ask what he’s doing, sir,’ says my wife, quite amazed.  Back comes the answer in a Jiffy—­

“‘C.  R. Y. I. N. G.’

“This caused all the bystanders to laugh excep my pore Mary Hann, who pull’d a very sad face.

“The good-naterd feller presently said, ‘he’d have another trile;’ and what d’ye think was the answer?  I’m blest if it wasn’t—­

“‘P.  A. P.’

“He was eating pap!  There’s for you—­there’s a rogue for you—­there’s a March of Intaleck!  Mary Hann smiled now for the fust time.  ’He’ll sleep now,’ says she.  And she sat down with a full hart.

*****

“If hever that good-naterd Shooperintendent comes to London, he need never ask for his skore at the ‘Wheel of Fortune Otel,’ I promise you—­where me and my wife and James Hangelo now is; and where only yesterday a gent came in and drew this pictur* of us in our bar.

     * This refers to an illustrated edition of the work.

“And if they go on breaking gages; and if the child, the most precious luggidge of the Henglishman, is to be bundled about this year way, why it won’t be for want of warning, both from Professor Harris, the Commission, and from

“My dear Mr. Punch’s obeajent servant,

“Jeames plush.”

THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN.

CHAPTER I.

“Truth is strange, stranger than fiction.”

I think it but right that in making my appearance before the public I should at once acquaint them with my titles and name.  My card, as I leave it at the houses of the nobility, my friends, is as follows:—­

MAJOR GOLIAH O’GRADY GAHAGAN, H.E.I.C.S.,

Commanding Battalion of Irregular Horse,

Ahmednuggar.

Seeing, I say, this simple visiting ticket, the world will avoid any of those awkward mistakes as to my person, which have been so frequent of late.  There has been no end to the blunders regarding this humble title of mine, and the confusion thereby created.  When I published my volume of poems, for instance, the Morning Post newspaper remarked “that the Lyrics of the Heart, by Miss Gahagan, may be ranked among the sweetest flowrets of the present spring season.”  The Quarterly Review, commenting upon my Observations on the “Pons Asinorum” (4to.  London, 1836), called me “Doctor Gahagan,” and so on.  It was time to put an end to these mistakes, and I have taken the above simple remedy.

I was urged to it by a very exalted personage.  Dining in August last at the palace of the T-lr-es at Paris, the lovely young Duch-ss of Orl—­ns (who, though she does not speak English, understands it as well as I do,) said to me in the softest Teutonic, “Lieber Herr Major, haben sie den Ahmednuggarischen-jager-battalion gelassen?” “Warum denn?” said I, quite astonished at her R---l H-----ss’s question.  The P---cess then spoke of some trifle from my pen, which was simply signed Goliah Gahagan.