My name, sir, is Tigg. The name
of Montague Tigg will perhaps be familiar to you, in connection with the
most remarkable events of the Peninsular War?'
Mr Pecksniff gently shook his head.
'No matter,' said the gentleman. 'That man was my father, and I bear his
name. I am consequently proud--proud as Lucifer. Excuse me one moment.
I desire my friend Slyme to be present at the remainder of this
conference.'
With this announcement he hurried away to the outer door of the Blue
Dragon, and almost immediately returned with a companion shorter than
himself, who was wrapped in an old blue camlet cloak with a lining of
faded scarlet. His sharp features being much pinched and nipped by long
waiting in the cold, and his straggling red whiskers and frowzy hair
being more than usually dishevelled from the same cause, he certainly
looked rather unwholesome and uncomfortable than Shakspearian or
Miltonic.
'Now,' said Mr Tigg, clapping one hand on the shoulder of his
prepossessing friend, and calling Mr Pecksniff's attention to him with
the other, 'you two are related; and relations never did agree, and
never will; which is a wise dispensation and an inevitable thing, or
there would be none but family parties, and everybody in the world
would bore everybody else to death.
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