Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

302
COX'S DIARY.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT.
On the 1st of January, 1838, I was the master of a lovely shop in the neighborhood of
Oxford Market; of a wife, Mrs. Cox; of a business, both in the shaving and cutting line,
established three-and-thirty years; of a girl and boy respectively of the ages of eighteen and
thirteen; of a three-windowed front, both to my first and second pair; of a young foreman,
my present partner, Mr. Orlando Crump; and of that celebrated mixture for the human hair,
invented by my late uncle, and called Cox's Bohemian Balsam of Tokay, sold in pots at
two-and-three and three-and-nine. The balsam, the lodgings, and the old-established cutting
and shaving business brought me in a pretty genteel income. I had my girl, Jemimarann, at
Hackney, to school; my dear boy, Tuggeridge, plaited her hair beautifully; my wife at the
counter (behind the tray of patent soaps, &c.) cut as handsome a figure as possible; and it
was my hope that Orlando and my girl, who were mighty soft upon one another, would one
day be joined together in Hyming, and, conjointly with my son Tug, carry on the business
of hairdressers when their father was either dead or a gentleman: for a gentleman me and
Mrs. C. determined I should be.
Jemima was, you see, a lady herself, and of very high connections: though her own family
had met with crosses, and was rather low. Mr. Tuggeridge, her father, kept the famous
tripe-shop near the "Pigtail and Sparrow," in the Whitechapel Road; from which place I
married her; being myself very fond of the article, and especially when she served it to
me—the dear thing!
Jemima's father was not successful in business: and I married her, I am proud to confess it,
without a shilling. I had my hands, my house, and my Bohemian balsam to support her!—
and we had hopes from her uncle, a mighty rich East India merchant, who, having left this
country sixty years ago as a cabin-boy, had arrived to be the head of a great house in India,
and was worth millions, we were told.
Three years after Jemimarann's birth (and two after the death of my lamented father-inlaw),
Tuggeridge (head of the great house of Budgurow and Co.) retired from the
management of it; handed over his shares to his son, Mr. John Tuggeridge, and came to live
in England, at Portland Place, and Tuggeridgeville, Surrey, and enjoy himself. Soon after,
my wife took her daughter in her hand and went, as in duty bound, to visit her uncle: but
whether it was that he was proud and surly, or she somewhat sharp in her way, (the dear
girl fears nobody, let me have you to know,) a desperate quarrel took place between them;
and from that day to the day of his death, he never set eyes on her. All that he would
condescend to do, was to take a few dozen of lavender-water from us in the course of the
year, and to send his servants to be cut and shaved by us. All the neighbors laughed at this