This being done, and Egerton's tiger having thrown open the front door, the thin young man offered one arm to Mrs. Bustard and the other to Miss Clarissa Jemima Bustard, and escorted them into the house, the four remaining young ladies following in a very interesting procession indeed.
Egerton hastened to welcome his relatives; but from the first moment that he had set his eyes upon the red-haired young man, he had entertained the most awful misgivings;—and those fears were fully confirmed when Mrs. Bustard introduced that same young man by the name of "Mr. Tedworth Jones, the intended husband of Clarissa Jemima."
The son and heir of the wealthy tripe-man tendered a hand which felt as flabby as tripe itself; and Miss Clarissa Jemima was under the necessity of blushing deeply at her mamma's allusion to her contemplated change of situation.
Egerton gave Mr. Tedworth Jones the tip of his fore-finger, and then conducted the party up stairs to the drawing-room, where the ceremony of introducing his City relatives to his West End friends took place.
Lord Dunstable was most gallant in claiming Mrs. Bustard as "an old acquaintance;" and he even overcame his aristocratic prejudices so far as to shake hands with Mr. Tedworth Jones. Then the young ladies were introduced in due order; and, though they giggled with each other a great deal, and were dressed in very flaunting colours, they were all very good-looking; and this circumstance rendered Lord Dunstable, Sir Rupert Harborough, Colonel Cholmondeley, and Mr. Chichester particularly agreeable towards them.
"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Bustard, throwing herself into an arm-chair, and wiping the perspiration from her fat face, "we really was scrooged up in that shay——"
"Glass-coach, mamma," said Miss Susannah Rachel, reprovingly.
"Never mind the name, my dear," returned Mrs. Bustard. "Your poor father always called it a shay; and he couldn't have been wrong. But, as I was a-saying, how we was squeeged up, to be sure! Six of us inside, and obleeged to sit on each other's knees."
"That will be just the very thing, madam, to render the trip more agreeable," said Mr. Chichester, with an affable smile.
"Provided the old lady doesn't sit on my knees," whispered Sir Rupert Harborough to Colonel Cholmondeley.