I handed over the business to Mr. Crump without a single farthing of premium, though Jemmy would have made me take four hundred pounds for it; but this I was above:  Crump had served me faithfully, and have the shop he should.

FIRST ROUT.

We were speedily installed in our fine house:  but what’s a house without friends?  Jemmy made me cut all my old acquaintances in the Market, and I was a solitary being; when, luckily, an old acquaintance of ours, Captain Tagrag, was so kind as to promise to introduce us into distinguished society.  Tagrag was the son of a baronet, and had done us the honor of lodging with us for two years; when we lost sight of him, and of his little account, too, by the way.  A fortnight after, hearing of our good fortune, he was among us again, however; and Jemmy was not a little glad to see him, knowing him to be a baronet’s son, and very fond of our Jemimarann.  Indeed, Orlando (who is as brave as a lion) had on one occasion absolutely beaten Mr. Tagrag for being rude to the poor girl:  a clear proof, as Tagrag said afterwards, that he was always fond of her.

Mr. Crump, poor fellow, was not very much pleased by our good fortune, though he did all he could to try at first; and I told him to come and take his dinner regular, as if nothing had happened.  But to this Jemima very soon put a stop, for she came very justly to know her stature, and to look down on Crump, which she bid her daughter to do; and, after a great scene, in which Orlando showed himself very rude and angry, he was forbidden the house—­for ever!

So much for poor Crump.  The Captain was now all in all with us.  “You see, sir,” our Jemmy would say, “we shall have our town and country mansion, and a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the funds, to leave between our two children; and, with such prospects, they ought surely to have the first society of England.”  To this Tagrag agreed, and promised to bring us acquainted with the very pink of the fashion; ay, and what’s more, did.

First, he made my wife get an opera-box, and give suppers on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  As for me, he made me ride in the Park:  me and Jemimarann, with two grooms behind us, who used to laugh all the way, and whose very beards I had shaved.  As for little Tug, he was sent straight off to the most fashionable school in the kingdom, the Reverend Doctor Pigney’s, at Richmond.

Well, the horses, the suppers, the opera-box, the paragraphs in the papers about Mr. Coxe Coxe (that’s the way:  double your name and stick an “e” to the end of it, and you are a gentleman at once), had an effect in a wonderfully short space of time, and we began to get a very pretty society about us.  Some of old Tug’s friends swore they would do anything for the family, and brought their wives and daughters to see dear Mrs. Coxe and her charming girl; and when, about the first week in February, we announced a grand dinner and ball for the evening of the twenty-eighth, I assure you there was no want of company:  no, nor of titles neither; and it always does my heart good even to hear one mentioned.