'em, and no mistake. There's old Blondel; there's my uncle Colchicum, the most confounded old sinner in Europe; there's hullo! there's somebody rapping the window and nodding at us."

"It's my uncle, the Major," said Pen. "Is he an old sinner too?"

"Notorious old rogue," Pop said, wagging his head. ("Notowious old wogue," he pronounced the words, thereby rendering them much more emphatic.) "He's beckoning you in; he wants to speak to you."

"Come in too," Pen said.

"Can't," replied the other. "Cut Uncle Col, two years ago, about Mademoiselle Frangipane - Ta, ta," and the young sinner took leave of Pen, and the club of the elder criminals, and sauntered into Blacquière's, an adjacent establishment, frequented by reprobates of his own age.

Colchicum, Blondel, and the senior bucks had just been conversing about the Clavering family, whose appearance in London had formed the subject of Major Pendennis's morning conversation with his valet. Mr. Blondel's house was next to that of Sir Francis Clavering, in Grosvenor Place: giving very good dinners himself, he had remarked some activity in his neighbor's kitchen. Sir Francis, indeed, had a new chef, who had come in more than once and dressed Mr. Blondel's dinner for him; that gentleman having only a remarkably expert female artist permanently engaged in his establishment, and employing such chefs of note as happened to be free on the occasion of his grand banquets. "They go to a devilish expense and see devilish bad company as yet, I hear," Mr. Blondel said, "they scour the streets, by gad, to get people to dine with 'em. Champignon says it breaks his heart to serve up a dinner to their

society. What a shame it is that those low people should have money at all," cried Mr. Blondel, whose grandfather had been a reputable leather-breeches maker, and whose father had lent money to the Princes.

"I wish I had fallen in with the widow myself," sighed Lord Colchicum, "and not been laid up with that confounded gout at Leghorn. I would have married the woman myself. I'm told she has six hundred thousand pounds in the Threes."

"Not quite so much as that, I knew her family in India," Major Pendennis said. "I knew her family in India; her father was an enormously rich old indigo-planter, know all about her, - Clavering has the next estate to ours in the country. Ha! there's my nephew walking with "-"With mine, the infernal young scamp," said Lord Colchicum, glowering at Popjoy out of his heavy eyebrows; and he turned. away from the window as Major Pendennis tapped upon it.

The Major was in high good-humor. The sun was bright, the air brisk and invigorating. He had determined upon a visit to Lady Clavering on that day, and bethought him that Arthur would be a good companion for the walk across the Green Park to her ladyship's door. Master Pen was not displeased to accompany his illustrious relative, who pointed out a dozen great men in their brief transit through St. James's Street, and got bows from a Duke, at a crossing, a Bishop (on a cob), and a Cabinet Minister with an umbrella. The Duke gave the elder Pendennis a finger of a pipe-clayed glove to shake, which the Major embraced with great veneration; and all Pen's blood tingled, as he found himself in actual communication, as it were, with this famous man (for Pen had

possession of the Major's left arm, whilst that gentleman's other wing was engaged with his Grace's right), and he wished all Grey Friars' School, all Oxbridge University, all Paternoster Row and the Temple, and Laura and his mother at Fairoaks, could be standing on each side of the street, to see the meeting between him and his uncle, and the most famous duke in Christendom.

fine

"How do, Pendennis? day," were his Grace's remarkable words, and with a nod of his august head he passed on in a blue frock-coat and spotless white duck trousers, in a white stock, with a shining buckle behind.

Old Pendennis, whose likeness to his Grace has been remarked, began to imitate him unconsciously, after they had parted, speaking with curt sentences, after the manner of the great man. We have all of us, no doubt, met with more than one military officer who has so imitated the manner of a certain Great Captain of the Age; and has, perhaps, changed his own natural character and disposition, because Fate had endowed him with an aquiline nose. In like manner have we not seen many another man pride himself on having a tall forehead and a supposed likeness to Mr. Canning? many another go through life swelling with self-gratification on account of an imagined resemblance (we say "imagined," because that anybody should be really like that most beautiful and perfect of men is impossible) to the great and revered George IV.: many third parties, who wore low necks to their dresses because they fancied that Lord Byron and themselves were similar in appearance and has not the grave closed but lately upon poor Tom Bickerstaff, who, having no more imagination than Mr. Joseph Hume, looked in the glass and

fancied himself like Shakspeare? shaved his forehead so as farther to resemble the immortal bard, wrote tragedies incessantly, and died perfectly crazy -actually perished of his forehead? These or similar freaks of vanity most people who have frequented the world must have seen in their experience. Pen laughed in his roguish sleeve at the manner in which his uncle began to imitate the great man from whom they had just parted: but Mr. Pen was as vain in his own way, perhaps, as the elder gentleman, and strutted, with a very consequential air of his own, by the Major's side.

"Yes, my dear boy," said the old bachelor, as they sauntered through the Green Park, where many poor children were disporting happily, and errand boys were playing at toss half-penny, and black sheep were grazing in the sunshine, and an actor was learning his part on a bench, and nursery maids and their charges sauntered here and there, and several couples were walking in a leisurely manner; "yes, depend on it, my boy; for a poor man, there is nothing like having good acquaintances. Who were those men, with whom you saw me in the bow-window at Bays's? Two were Peers of the realm. Hobananob will be a Peer, as soon as his grand-uncle dies, and he has had his third seizure; and of the other four, not one has less than his seven thousand a-year. Did you see that dark blue brougham, with that tremendous stepping horse, waiting at the door of the club? You'll know it again. It is Sir Hugh Trumpington's; he was never known to walk in his life; never appears in the streets on foot never: and if he is going two doors off, to 'see his mother, the old dowager (to whom I shall certainly introduce you, for she receives some of the best company in London), gad, sir, he mounts

his horse at No. 23, and dismounts again at No. 25 A. He is now up-stairs, at Bays's, playing piquet with Count Punter: he is the second-best player in England as well he may be; for he plays every day of his life, except Sundays (for Sir Hugh is an uncommonly religious man), from half past three till half past seven, when he dresses for dinner."

"A very pious manner of spending his time," Pen said, laughing, and thinking that his uncle was falling into the twaddling state.

"Gad, sir, that is not the question. A man of his estate may employ his time as he chooses. When you are a baronet, a county member, with ten thousand acres of the best land in Cheshire, and such a place as Trumpington (though he never goes there), you may do as you like."

"And so that was his brougham, sir, was it?" the nephew said, with almost a sneer.

"His brougham-O ay, yes!—and that brings me back to my point-revenons à nos moutons. Yes, begad! revenons à nos moutons. Well, that brougham is mine if I choose, between four and seven. Just as much mine as if I jobbed it from Tilbury's, begad, for thirty pound a month. Sir Hugh is the best-natured fellow in the world; and if it had n't been so fine an afternoon as it is, you and I would have been in that brougham at this very minute, on our way to Grosvenor Place. That is the benefit of knowing rich men;-I dine for nothing, sir; - I go into the country, and I'm mounted for nothing. Other fellows keep hounds and gamekeepers for me. Sic vos non vobis, as we used to say at Grey Friars, hey? I'm of the opinion of my old friend Leech, of the Forty-fourth; and a devilish good shrewd fellow he was, as most Scotchmen are. Gad, sir, Leech used to