Jemmy, in a fury, "you shall marry Tagrag;
and if I can't have a baroness for a daughter, at least you shall be a
baronet's lady." Poor Jemimarann only sighed: she knew it was of no use
to remonstrate.

Paris grew dull to us after this, and we were more eager than ever to
go back to London: for what should we hear, but that that monster,
Tuggeridge, of the City--old Tug's black son, forsooth!--was going to
contest Jemmy's claim to the property, and had filed I don't know how
many bills against us in Chancery! Hearing this, we set off immediately,
and we arrived at Boulogne, and set off in that very same "Grand Turk"
which had brought us to France.

If you look in the bills, you will see that the steamers leave London on
Saturday morning, and Boulogne on Saturday night; so that there is often
not an hour between the time of arrival and departure. Bless us! bless
us! I pity the poor Captain that, for twenty-four hours at a time, is on
a paddle-box, roaring out, "Ease her! Stop her!" and the poor servants,
who are laying out breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, supper;--breakfast,
lunch, dinner, tea, supper again;--for layers upon layers of travellers,
as it were; and most of all, I pity that unhappy steward, with those
unfortunate tin-basins that he must always keep an eye over. Little did
we know what a storm was brooding in our absence; and little were we
prepared for the awful, awful fate that hung over our Tuggeridgeville
property.

Biggs, of the great house of Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick, was our man
of business: when I arrived in London I heard that he had just set off
to Paris after me. So we started down to Tuggeridgeville instead of
going to Portland Place. As we came through the lodge-gates, we found
a crowd assembled within them; and there was that horrid Tuggeridige on
horseback, with a shabby-looking man, called Mr. Scapgoat, and his man
of business, and many more. "Mr. Scapgoat," says Tuggeridge, grinning,
and handing him over a sealed paper, "here's the lease; I leave you in
possession, and wish you good morning."

"In possession of what?" says the rightful lady of Tuggeridgeville,
leaning out of the carriage-window. She hated black Tuggeridge, as she
called him, like poison: the very first week of our coming to Portland
Place, when he called to ask restitution of some plate which he said was
his private property, she called him a base-born blackamoor, and told
him to quit the house. Since then there had be