THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF
MAJOR GAHAGAN
Etc. Etc.
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Contents
CHAPTER I
“Truth is strange, Stranger than fiction.”
I think it but right that in making my appearance before the public I should at once acquaint them with my titles and name. My card, as I leave it at the houses of the nobility, my friends, is as follows:—
MAJOR GOLIAH O’GRADY GAHAGAN, H.E.I.C.S.,
Commanding Battalion of
Irregular Horse,
AHMEDNUGGAR.
Seeing, I say, this simple visiting ticket, the world will avoid any of those awkward mistakes as to my person, which have been so frequent of late. There has been no end to the blunders regarding this humble title of mine, and the confusion thereby created. When I published my volume of poems, for instance, the Morning Post newspaper remarked “that the Lyrics of the Heart, by Miss Gahagan, may be ranked among the sweetest flowrets of the present spring season.” The Quarterly Review, commenting upon my “Observations on the Pons Asinorum” (4to, London, 1836), called me “Doctor Gahagan,” and so on. It was time to put an end to these mistakes, and I have taken the above simple remedy.