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If the pier had presented a scene of life and bustle to the Tuggses on their first landing at Ramsgate, it was far surpassed by the appearance of the sands on the morning after their arrival. It was a fine, bright, clear day, with a light breeze from the sea. There were the same ladies and gentlemen, the same children, the same nursemaids, the same telescopes, the same portable chairs.
Let him read, for instance, such a story as that of Horatio Sparkins or that of The Tuggses at Ramsgate.
Her flag was flying, her band was playing, her passengers were conversing; everything about her seemed gay and lively.—No wonder—the Tuggses were on board. ‘Charming, ain’t it?’ said Mr. Joseph Tuggs, in a bottle-green great-coat, with a velvet collar of the same, and a blue travelling-cap with a gold band. ‘Soul-inspiring,’ replied Mr. Cymon Tuggs—he was entered at the bar. ‘Soul-inspiring!’
Cymon Tuggs; seeing that the military gentleman was casting an admiring look towards Miss Charlotta. ‘My wife, ma’am—Mrs. Captain Waters,’ said the military gentleman, presenting the black-eyed young lady. ‘My mother, ma’am—Mrs. Tuggs,’ said Mr. Cymon. The military gentleman and his wife murmured enchanting courtesies; and the Tuggses looked as unembarrassed as they could.
All this was highly gratifying to the feelings of the Tuggses; and when, in the course of farther conversation, it was discovered that Miss Charlotta Tuggs was the fac simile of a titled relative of Mrs. Belinda Waters, and that Mrs. Tuggs herself was the very picture of the Dowager Duchess of Dobbleton, their delight in the acquisition of so genteel and friendly an acquaintance, knew no bounds.
Cymon Tuggs behind it: pallid with apprehension, and blue with wanting to cough. ‘Aha!’ exclaimed the captain, furiously. ‘What do I see? Slaughter, your sabre!’ ‘Cymon!’ screamed the Tuggses. ‘Mercy!’ said Belinda. ‘Platonic!’ gasped Cymon. ‘Your sabre!’ roared the captain: ‘Slaughter—unhand me—the villain’s life!’ ‘Murder!’ screamed the Tuggses. ‘Hold him fast, sir!’ faintly articulated Cymon.
Joseph Tuggs was the possessor of twenty thousand pounds. A prolonged consultation took place, that night, in the little parlour—a consultation that was to settle the future destinies of the Tuggses.
Tippin sang a comic song, accompanied on the piano by Mrs. Tippin: the applause consequent upon which, was only to be exceeded by the enthusiastic approbation bestowed upon an air with variations on the guitar, by Miss Tippin, accompanied on the chin by Master Tippin. Thus passed the evening; thus passed the days and evenings of the Tuggses, and the Waterses, for six weeks.
Now this is exactly where Dickens, and the possible mistake about Dickens, both come in. Numbers of sensitive ladies, numbers of simple æsthetes, have had a vague shrinking from that element in Dickens which begins vaguely in The Tuggses at Ramsgate and culminates in Pickwick.
The money was paid to hush the matter up, but it got abroad notwithstanding; and there are not wanting some who affirm that three designing impostors never found more easy dupes, than did Captain Waters, Mrs. Waters, and Lieutenant Slaughter, in the Tuggses at Ramsgate. ‘Indeed, my love, he paid Teresa very great attention on the last assembly night,’ said Mrs.
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