SEARCH
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Prev | Current Page 596 | Next

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863

"Burlesques"


Well, our box was next to theirs at the Opera; only twice as big.
Whatever masters went to Lady Juliana, came to my Jemimarann; and what
do you think Jemmy did? she got her celebrated governess, Madame de
Flicflac, away from the Countess, by offering a double salary. It was
quite a treasure, they said, to have Madame Flicflac: she had been (to
support her father, the Count, when he emigrated) a FRENCH dancer at the
ITALIAN Opera. French dancing, and Italian, therefore, we had at once,
and in the best style: it is astonishing how quick and well she used to
speak--the French especially.
Master Arthur MacTurk was at the famous school of the Reverend Clement
Coddler, along with a hundred and ten other young fashionables, from the
age of three to fifteen; and to this establishment Jemmy sent our Tug,
adding forty guineas to the hundred and twenty paid every year for the
boarders. I think I found out the dear soul's reason; for, one day,
speaking about the school to a mutual acquaintance of ours and the
Kilblazes, she whispered to him that "she never would have thought of
sending her darling boy at the rate which her next-door neighbors paid;
THEIR lad, she was sure, must be starved: however, poor people, they did
the best they could on their income!"
Coddler's, in fact, was the tip-top school near London: he had been
tutor to the Duke of Buckminster, who had set him up in the school, and,
as I tell you, all the peerage and respectable commoners came to it.


Pages:
584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608