house weren't my own, to sell or to keep, or to fling out of window if I choose by Gad! the confounded scoundrel." "Cry a little; don't mind cryin' before me — you, Clavering," the other said.

66

- it'll relieve

Why, I say, old feller, what a happy feller I once thought you, and what a miserable son of a gun you really are!"

"It's a shame that they treat me so, ain't it?" Clavering went on, for though ordinarily silent and apathetic, about his own griefs the Baronet could whine for an hour at a time. And and, by Gad, sir, I haven't got the money to pay the very cab that's waiting for me at the door; and the porteress, that Mrs. Bolton, lent me three shillin's, and I don't like to ask her for any more: and I asked that d-d old Costigan, the confounded old penniless Irish miscreant, and he hadn't got a shillin', the beggar; and Campion's out of town, or else he'd do a little bill for me, I know he would."

"I thought you swore on your honor to your wife that you wouldn't put your name to paper," said Mr. Altamont, puffing at his cigar.

“Oh,

"Why does she leave me without pocket-money then? Damme, I must have money," cried out the Baronet. Am-, Oh, Altamont, I'm the most miserable beggar alive." "You'd like a chap to lend you a twenty-pound note, wouldn't you now?" the other asked.

"If you would, I'd be grateful to you for ever my dearest friend," cried Clavering.

for ever,

"How much would you give? Will you give a fifty-pound bill, at six months, for half down and half in plate?" asked Altamont.

"Yes, I would, so help me and pay it on the day," screamed Clavering. "I'll make it payable at my banker's: I'll do anything you like."

"Well, I was only chaffing you. I'll give you twenty pound."

"You said a pony," interposed Clavering; "my dear fellow, you said a pony, and I'll be eternally obliged to you; and I'll not take it as a gift - only as a loan, and pay you back in six months. I take my oath I will."

"Well well there's the money, Sir Francis Clavering. I ain't a bad fellow. When I've money in my pocket, dammy, I spend it like a man: Here's five-and-twenty for you. Don't be losing it at the hells now. Don't be making a fool of yourself. Go down to Clavering Park, and it'll keep you ever so long. You needn't 'ave butchers' meat: there's pigs, I dare

say, on the premises: and you can shoot rabbits for dinner, you know, every day till the game comes in. Besides, the neighbors will ask you about to dinner, you know, sometimes. for you are a Baronet, though you have outrun the constable. And you've got this comfort, that I'm off your shoulders for a good bit to come p'raps this two years and I don't intend to touch the confounded black and red: and if I don't play; by that time my lady, as you call her―Jimmy, I used to say will have come round again; and you'll be ready for me, you know, and come down handsomely to yours truly."

At this juncture of their conversation Strong returned, nor did the Baronet care much about prolonging the talk, having got the money; and he made his way from Shepherd's Inn, and went home and bullied his servant in a manner so unusually brisk and insolent, that the man concluded his master must have pawned some more of the house furniture, or, at any rate, have come into possession of some ready money.

"And yet I've looked over the house, Morgan, and I don't think he has took any more of the things," Sir Francis's valet said to Major Pendennis's man, as they met at their Club soon after. 66 My lady locked up a'most all the bejewtary afore she went away, and he couldn't take away the picters and lookingglasses in a cab: and he wouldn't spout the fenders and fireirons he ain't so bad as that. But he's got money somehow. He's so dam'd imperent when he have. sor him at Vauxhall, where I was a polkin with Lady Hemly A few nights ago I Badewood's gals a wery pleasant room that is, and an uncommon good lot in it, hall except the 'ousekeeper, and she's methodisticle I was a polkin — you're too old a cove to polk, Mr. Morgan and 'ere's your 'ealth—and I 'appened to 'ave on some of Clavering's abberdashery, and he sor it too: and he did'nt dare so much as speak a word.”

"How about the house in St. John's Wood?" Mr. Morgan asked.

"Execution in it. Sold up hevery thing: ponies, and pianna, and brougham, and all. Mrs. Montague Rivers hoff to Boulogne, non est inwentus, Mr. Morgan. It's my belief

she put the execution in herself: and was tired of him."

66

Play much?" asked Morgan.

"Not since the smash.

lawyers, and my lady and him had that tremenduous scene: he When your Governor, and the went down on his knees, my lady told Mrs. Bonner, as told and swoar as he never more would touch a card or a dice,

me,

or put his name to a bit of paper; and my lady was a goin' to give him the notes down to pay his liabilities after the race: only your Governor said, (which he wrote it on a piece of paper, and passed it across the table to the lawyer and my lady,) that some one else had better book up for him, for he'd have kep' some of the money. He's a sly old cove, your Gov'nor."

The expression of "old cove," thus flippantly applied by the younger gentleman to himself and his master, displeased Mr. Morgan exceedingly. On the first occasion, when Mr. Lightfoot used the obnoxious expression, his comrade's anger was only indicated by a silent frown; but on the second offence, Morgan, who was smoking his cigar elegantly, and holding it on the tip of his penknife, withdrew the cigar from his lips, and took his young friend to task.

"Don't call Major Pendennis an old cove, if you'll 'ave the goodness, Lightfoot, and don't call me an old cove, nether. Such words ain't used in society; and we have lived in the fust society, both at 'ome and foring. We've been intimate with the fust statesmen of Europe. When we go abroad we dine with Prince Metternich and Louy Philup reg'lar. We go here to the best houses, the tip tops, I tell you. We ride with Lord John and the noble Whycount at the edd of Foring Affairs. We dine with the Hearl of Burgrave, and are consulted by the Marquis of Steyne in everythink. We ought to know a thing or two, Mr. Lightfoot. You're a young man; I'm an old cove, as you say. We've both seen the world, and we both know that it ain't money, nor bein' a Baronet, nor 'avin' a town and country 'ouse, nor a paltry five or six thousand a year."

"It's ten, Mr. Morgan," cried Mr. Lightfoot, with great animation.

"It may have been, sir," Morgan said, with calm severity ; "it may have been, Mr. Lightfoot, but it ain't six now, nor five, sir. It's been doosedly dipped and cut into, sir, by the confounded extravygance of your master, with his helbow shakin', and his bill discountin', and his cottage in the Regency Park, and his many wickednesses. He's a bad un, Mr. Lightfoot, a bad lot sir, and that you know. And it ain't money, sir, - not such money as that, at any rate, come from a Calcuttar attorney, and I dussay wrung out of the pore starving blacks - that will give a pusson position in society, as you know very well. We've no money, but we go everywhere; there's not a housekeeper's room, sir, in this town of any con

siquince, where James Morgan ain't welcome. And it was me who got you into this Club, Lightfoot, as you very well know, though I am an old cove, and they would have blackballed you without me as sure as your name is Frederic.”

"I know they would, Mr. Morgan," said the other, with much humility.

"Well, then, don't call me an old cove, sir. It ain't gentlemanlike, Frederic Lightfoot, which I knew you when you was a cab-boy, and when your father was in trouble, and got you the place you have now when the Frenchman went away. And if you think, sir, that because you're making up to Mrs. Bonner, who may have saved her two thousand pound—and I daresay she has in five-and-twenty years, as she have lived confidential maid to Lady Clavering—yet, sir, you must remember who put you into that service, and who knows what you were before, sir, and it don't become you, Frederic Lightfoot, to call me an old cove."

66

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I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan I can't do more than make an apology will you have a glass, sir, and let me drink your 'ealth?"

"You know I don't take sperrits, Lightfoot," replied Morgan, appeased. "And so you and Mrs. Bonner is going to put up together, are you?"

6

"She's old, but two thousand pound's a good bit, you see, Mr. Morgan. And we'll get the Clavering Arms' for a very little; and that'll be no bad thing when the railroad runs through Clavering. And when we are there, I hope you'll come and see us, Mr. Morgan."

"It's a stoopid place, and no society," said Mr. Morgan. "I know it well. In Mrs. Pendennis's time we used to go down reg'lar, and the hair refreshed me after the London racket."

"The railroad will improve Mr. Arthur's property," remarked Lightfoot. "What's about the figure of it, should you say, sir?"

"Under fifteen hundred, sir," answered Morgan; at which the other, who knew the extent of poor Arthur's acres, thrust his tongue in his cheek, but remained wisely silent.

"Is his man any good, Mr. Morgan?" Lightfoot resumed. "Pidgeon ain't used to society as yet; but he's young and has good talents, and has read a good deal, and I dessay he will do very well," replied Morgan. "He wouldn't quite do for this kind of thing, Lightfoot, for he ain't seen the world yet."

When the pint of sherry for which Mr. Lightfoot called, upon Mr. Morgan's announcement that he declined to drink spirits, had been discussed by the two gentlemen, who held the wine up to the light, and smacked their lips, and winked their eyes at it, and rallied the landlord as to the vintage, in the most approved manner of connoisseurs, Morgan's ruffled equanimity was quite restored, and he was prepared to treat his young friend with perfect good-humor.

"What d'you think about Miss Amory, Lightfoot — tell us in confidence, now - Do you think we should do well-you understand if we make Miss A. into Mrs. A. P., comprendy vous?"

"She and her ma's always quarrelin'," said Mr. Lightfoot. "Bonner is more than a match for the old lady, and treats Sir Francis like-like this year spill, which I fling into the grate. But she daren't say a word to Miss Amory. No more dare none of us. When a visitor comes in, she smiles and languishes, you'd think that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth: and the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild. If Mr. Arthur comes, it's Do let's sing that there delightful song!' or, 'Come and write me them pooty verses in this halbum!' and very likely she's been a rilin' her mother, or sticking pins into her maid, a minute before. She do stick pins into her and pinch her. Mary Hann showed me one of her arms quite black and blue; and I recklect Mrs. Bonner, who's as jealous of me as a old cat, boxed her ears for showing me. And then you should see Miss at luncheon, when there's nobody but the family. She makes b'lieve she never heats, and my! you should only jest see her. She has Mary Hann to bring her up plum-cakes and creams into her bedroom; and the cook's the only man in the house she's civil to. Bonner says, how, the second season in London, Mr. Soppington was a goin' to propose for her, and actially came one day, and sor her fling a book into the fire, and scold her mother so, that he went down softly by the back droring-room door, which he came in by; and next thing we heard of him was, he was married to Miss Rider. Oh, she's a devil, that little Blanche, and that's my candig apinium, Mr. Morgan."

"Apinion, not apinium, Lightfoot, my good fellow," Mr. Morgan said, with parental kindness; and then asked of his own bosom, with a sigh, why the deuce does my Governor want Master Arthur to marry such a girl as this? and the tête-à-tête of the two gentlemen was broken up by the entry of