Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

325
A TOURNAMENT.
"I say, Tug," said MacTurk, one day soon after our flareup at Beulah, "Kilblazes comes of
age in October, and then we'll cut you out, as I told you: the old barberess will die of spite
when she hears what we are going to do. What do you think? we're going to have a
tournament!" "What's a tournament?" says Tug, and so said his mamma when she heard the
news; and when she knew what a tournament was, I think, really, she WAS as angry as
MacTurk said she would be, and gave us no peace for days together. "What!" says she,
"dress up in armor, like play-actors, and run at each other with spears? The Kilblazes must
be mad!" And so I thought, but I didn't think the Tuggeridges would be mad too, as they
were: for, when Jemmy heard that the Kilblazes' festival was to be, as yet, a profound
secret, what does she do, but send down to the Morning Post a flaming account of
"THE PASSAGE OF ARMS AT TUGGERIDGEVIILLE!
"The days of chivalry are NOT past. The fair Castellane of T-gg-r-dgeville, whose splendid
entertainments have so often been alluded to in this paper, has determined to give one,
which shall exceed in splendor even the magnificence of the Middle Ages. We are not at
liberty to say more; but a tournament, at which His Ex-l-ncy B-r-n de P-nt-r and Thomas Tgr-g,
Esq., eldest son of Sir Th—s T-gr-g, are to be the knights-defendants against all
comers; a QUEEN OF BEAUTY, of whose loveliness every frequenter of fashion has felt
the power; a banquet, unexampled in the annals of Gunter; and a ball, in which the
recollections of ancient chivalry will blend sweetly with the soft tones of Weippert and
Collinet, are among the entertainments which the Ladye of T-gg-ridgeville has prepared for
her distinguished guests."
The Baron was the life of the scheme; he longed to be on horseback, and in the field at
Tuggeridgeville, where he, Tagrag, and a number of our friends practised: he was the very
best tilter present; he vaulted over his horse, and played such wonderful antics, as never
were done except at Ducrow's.
And now—oh that I had twenty pages, instead of this short chapter, to describe the wonders
of the day!—Twenty-four knights came from Ashley's at two guineas a head. We were in
hopes to have had Miss Woolford in the character of Joan of Arc, but that lady did not
appear. We had a tent for the challengers, at each side of which hung what they called
ESCOACHINGS, (like hatchments, which they put up when people die,) and underneath
sat their pages, holding their helmets for the tournament. Tagrag was in brass armor (my
City connections got him that famous suit); his Excellency in polished steel. My wife wore
a coronet, modelled exactly after that of Queen Catharine, in "Henry V.;" a tight gilt jacket,