LF.
The Last Chapter

PART I. WHAT GINX DID WITH HIM.

I.--Ab initio.

The name of the father of Ginx's Baby was Ginx. By a not unexceptional
coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The gender of Ginx's Baby was
masculine.

On the day when our hero was born, Mr. and Mrs. Ginx were living at
Number Five, Rosemary Street, in the City of Westminster. The being then
and there brought into the world was not the only human entity to which
the title of "Ginx's Baby" was or had been appropriate. Ginx had been
married to Betsy Hicks at St. John's, Westminster, on the twenty-fifth
day of October, 18--, as appears from the "marriage lines" retained by
Betsy Ginx, and carefully collated by me with the original register.
Our hero was their thirteenth child. Patient inquiry has enabled me
to verify the following history of their propagations. On July the
twenty-fifth, the year after their marriage, Mrs. Ginx was safely
delivered of a girl. No announcement of this appeared in the newspapers.

On the tenth of April following, the whole neighborhood, including Great
Smith Street, Marsham Street, Great and Little Peter Streets, Regent
Street, Horseferry Road, and Strutton Ground, was convulsed by
the report that a woman named Ginx had given birth to "a triplet,"
consisting of two girls and a boy. The news penetrated to Dean's Yard
and the ancient school of Westminster. The Dean, who accepted nothing
on trust, sent to verify the report, his messenger bearing a bundle of
baby-clothes from the Dean's wife, who thought that the mother could
scarcely have provided for so large an addition to her family. The
schoolboys, on their way to the play-ground at Vincent Square, slyly
diverged to have a look at the curiosity, paying sixpence a head to Mrs.
Ginx's friend and crony, Mrs. Spittal, who pocketed the money, and said
nothing about it to the sick woman. THIS birth was announced in all
the newspapers throughout the kingdom, with the further news that Her
Majesty the Queen had been graciously pleased to forward to Mrs. Ginx
the sum of three pounds.

What could have possessed the woman I can't say, but about a twelvemonth
after, Mrs. Ginx, with the assistance of two doctors hastily fetched
from the hospital by her frightened husband, nearly perished in a fresh
effort of maternity. This time two sons and two daughters fell to the
lot of the happy pair. Her Majesty sent four pounds. But whatever peace
there was at home, bro