looking at us.  “Hurra!  This way, ma’am!” And turning round a corner, he opened a door into a court-yard, where a number of boys were collected, and a great noise of shrill voices might be heard.  “Go it, Turk!” says one.  “Go it, barber!” says another.  “Punch HITH life out!” roars another, whose voice was just cracked, and his clothes half a yard too short for him!

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.