ty, and who
turn out instead to be not worth two-pence-halfpenny in the world. Nor
were words wanting to add dire Insult to this astounding Injury; for
Madam Taffetas, now Dangerous, as I groaningly remembered, must needs
call me Mercenary Rascal, Shuffling Pickthank, Low-minded
Fortune-hunter, and the like unkind names.

Madam Dangerous indeed! But I am thankful to Providence that the title
she assumed very soon fell away from her, and that I was once more left
free and Independent. For whilst we were in the very midst of Hot
Dispute and violent Recrimination comes a great noise at the door as
though some one were striving to Batter it down. And then Margery the
maid and Tom the shop-lad began to howl and yelp again, crying out
Murder and thieves, and that they were undone, the Bailiffs smoking
their Pipes and drinking their Beer meanwhile, as though they enjoyed
the Humours of the Scene hugely, and my wicked wife now pretending to
faint, and now making at me with the avowed Design of tearing my eyes
out. Presently comes lurching and staggering into the room a Great
Hulking Brute of a Man that was attired like a Sea Captain; and this
Roystering Tarpaulin makes up without more ado to my Precious Partner,
gives her two sounding Busses on either side of her cheeks, and salutes
her as his wife.

"Your wife!" I cried, starting up; "why, she's my wife! I married her
this very morning, and to my sorrow, before Parson Hodge, the
Couple-Beggar, at the Fleet."

"That may be, Brother," answers the Sea Captain, with drunken gravity;
"but she's my wife, for all that. You married her this morning, you say.
I married her five years ago, at Horsleydown, and in the Parish church.
I've got the 'Stifficate to prove it; and though I say it that
shouldn't, there's not a Finer woman, with a neater ankle and such a
Devil of a temper, to be found 'twixt Beachy Head and Cape Horn."

"A fig for both of you," bellows Madam Taffetas, who had gone into one
of her Sham Faints in the arm-chair, but was now conveniently recovered
again. "If I'm married to both of you--to you, you pitiless Grampus"
(this was to the Sea Captain), "and to you, Ruffian, Bully, and
Stabster" (this was to _me_), "I'm married to somebody else, and my real
Husband is a Gentleman, who, if he were here, would quoit the pair of
you into the street from Exeter Change to the Fox under the Hill."

She said this in one Scream, and then Fainted, or pretended to Faint
again.