rity of the
Scullyites and their leader.

Immediately after this event, Mr. Scully and his young friend Perkins
returned to town; the latter to his garrets in Bedford Row--the former
to his apartments on the first floor of the same house. He lived here to
superintend his legal business: his London agents, Messrs. Higgs, Biggs,
and Blatherwick, occupying the ground floor; the junior partner, Mr.
Gustavus Blatherwick, the second flat of the house. Scully made no
secret of his profession or residence: he was an attorney, and proud of
it; he was the grandson of a labourer, and thanked God for it; he had
made his fortune by his own honest labour, and why should he be ashamed
of it?

And now, having explained at full length who the several heroes and
heroines of this history were, and how they conducted themselves in the
country, let us describe their behaviour in London, and the great events
which occurred there.

You must know that Mr. Perkins bore away the tenderest recollections
of the young lady with whom he had danced at the Oldborough ball, and,
having taken particular care to find out where she dwelt when in the
metropolis, managed soon to become acquainted with Aunt Biggs, and made
himself so amiable to that lady, that she begged he would pass all his
disengaged evenings at her lodgings in Caroline Place. Mrs. Biggs was
perfectly aware that the young gentleman did not come for her bohea
and muffins, so much as for the sweeter conversation of her niece, Miss
Gorgon; but seeing that these two young people were of an age when ideas
of love and marriage will spring up, do what you will; seeing that her
niece had a fortune, and Mr. Perkins had the prospect of a place, and
was moreover a very amiable and well-disposed young fellow, she thought
her niece could not do better than marry him; and Miss Gorgon thought
so too. Now the public will be able to understand the meaning of that
important conversation which is recorded at the very commencement of
this history.

Lady Gorgon and her family were likewise in town; but, when in the
metropolis, they never took notice of their relative, Miss Lucy: the
idea of acknowledging an ex-schoolmistress living in Mecklenburgh Square
being much too preposterous for a person of my Lady Gorgon's breeding
and fashion. She did not, therefore, know of the progress which sly
Perkins was making all this while; for Lucy Gorgon did not think it was
at all necessary to inform her Ladyship how