mbrella and glove, as a preliminary to
shaking hands with Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

Now the words 'we have been successful,' had no sooner issued from the
mouth of the man with the bag, than Mr. Simon Tuggs rose from the tub of
weekly Dorset, opened his eyes very wide, gasped for breath, made figures
of eight in the air with his pen, and finally fell into the arms of his
anxious mother, and fainted away without the slightest ostensible cause
or pretence.

'Water!' screamed Mrs. Tuggs.

'Look up, my son,' exclaimed Mr. Tuggs.

'Simon! dear Simon!' shrieked Miss Tuggs.

'I'm better now,' said Mr. Simon Tuggs. 'What! successful!' And then,
as corroborative evidence of his being better, he fainted away again, and
was borne into the little parlour by the united efforts of the remainder
of the family, and the man with the bag.

To a casual spectator, or to any one unacquainted with the position of
the family, this fainting would have been unaccountable. To those who
understood the mission of the man with the bag, and were moreover
acquainted with the excitability of the nerves of Mr. Simon Tuggs, it was
quite comprehensible. A long-pending lawsuit respecting the validity of
a will, had been unexpectedly decided; and Mr. Joseph Tuggs was the
possessor of twenty thousand pounds.

A prolonged consultation took place, that night, in the little parlour--a
consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggses. The
shop was shut up, at an unusually early hour; and many were the
unavailing kicks bestowed upon the closed door by applicants for
quarterns of sugar, or half-quarterns of bread, or penn'orths of pepper,
which were to have been 'left till Saturday,' but which fortune had
decreed were to be left alone altogether.

'We must certainly give up business,' said Miss Tuggs.

'Oh, decidedly,' said Mrs. Tuggs.

'Simon shall go to the bar,' said Mr. Joseph Tuggs.

'And I shall always sign myself "Cymon" in future,' said his son.

'And I shall call myself Charlotta,' said Miss Tuggs.

'And you must always call _me_ "Ma," and father "Pa,"' said Mrs. Tuggs.

'Yes, and Pa must leave off all his vulgar habits,' interposed Miss
Tuggs.

'I'll take care of all that,' responded Mr. Joseph Tuggs, complacently.
He was, at that very moment, eating pickled salmon with a pocket-knife.

'We must leave town immediately,' said Mr. Cymon Tuggs.

Everybody concurred that this was an indispensable preliminary to being
ge