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.
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