In which the Printer’s Devil comes to the Door
Pen, in the midst of his revels and enjoyments, humble as they were,
and moderate in cost if not in kind, saw an awful sword hanging over
him which must drop down before long and put an end to his frolics and
feasting. His money was very nearly spent. His club subscription had
carried away a third part of it. He had paid for the chief articles of
furniture with which he had supplied his little bedroom: in fine, he
was come to the last five-pound note in his pocket-book, and could
think of no method of providing a successor: for our friend had been
bred up like a young prince as yet, or as a child in arms whom his
mother feeds when it cries out.
Warrington did not know what his comrade’s means were. An only child,
with a mother at her country house, and an old dandy of an uncle who
dined with a great man every day, Pen might have a large bank at his
command for anything that the other knew. He had gold chains and a
dressing-case fit for a lord. His habits were those of an
aristocrat,—not that he was expensive upon any particular point, for he
dined and laughed over the pint of porter and the plate of beef from
the cook’s shop with perfect content and good appetite,—but he could
not adopt the penny-wise precautions of life. He could not give
twopence to a waiter; he could not refrain from taking a cab if he had
a mind to do so, or if it rained, and as surely as he took the cab he
overpaid the driver. He had a scorn for cleaned gloves and minor
economies. Had he been bred to ten thousand a year he could scarcely
have been more free-handed; and for a beggar, with a sad story, or a
couple of pretty piteous-faced children, he never could resist putting
his hand into his pocket. It was a sumptuous nature, perhaps, that
could not be brought to regard money; a natural generosity and
kindness; and possibly a petty vanity that was pleased with praise,
even with the praise of waiters and cabmen. I doubt whether the wisest
of us know what our own motives are, and whether some of the actions of
which we are the very proudest will not surprise us when we trace them,
as we shall one day, to their source.
Warrington then did not know, and Pen had not thought proper to confide
to his friend, his pecuniary history. That Pen had been wild and
wickedly extravagant at college, the other was aware; everybody at
college was extravagant and wild; but how great the son’s expenses had
been, and how small the mother’s means, were points which had not been
as yet submitted to Mr. Warrington’s examination.
At last the story came out, while Pen was grimly surveying the change
for the last five-pound note, as it lay upon the tray from the
public-house by Mr. Warrington’s pot of ale.
“It is the last rose of summer,” said Pen; “its blooming companions
have gone long ago; and behold the last one of the garland has shed its
leaves;” and he told Warrington the whole story which we know of his
mother’s means, of his own follies, of Laura’s generosity; during which
time Warrington smoked his pipe and listened intent.
“Impecuniosity will do you good,” Pen’s friend said, knocking out the
ashes at the end of the narration; “I don’t know anything more
wholesome for a man—for an honest man, mind you—for another, the
medicine loses its effect—than a state of tick. It is an alterative and
a tonic; it keeps your moral man in a perpetual state of excitement: as
a man who is riding at a fence, or has his opponent’s single-stick
before him, is forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, and
braces himself to repulse or overcome it; a little necessity brings out
your pluck if you have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. You
will discover what a number of things you can do without when you have
no money to buy them. You won’t want new gloves and varnished boots,
eau de Cologne and cabs to ride in. You have been bred up as a
molly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single man who has health
and brains, and can’t find a livelihood in the world, doesn’t deserve
to stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny and jump over Waterloo
Bridge. Let him steal a leg of mutton and be transported and get out of
the country—he is not fit to live in it. Dixi; I have spoken. Give us
another pull at the pale ale.”
“You have certainly spoken; but how is one to live?” said Pen. “There
is beef and bread in plenty in England, but you must pay for it with
work or money. And who will take my work? and what work can I do?”
Warrington burst out laughing. “Suppose we advertise in the Times,” he
said, “for an usher’s place at a classical and commercial academy—A
gentleman, B.A. of St. Boniface College, and who was plucked for his
degree—”
“Confound you,” cried Pen.
“—Wishes to give lessons in classics and mathematics, and the rudiments
of the French language; he can cut hair, attend to the younger pupils,
and play a second on the piano with the daughters of the principal.
Address A. P., Lamb Court, Temple.”
“Go on,” said Pen, growling.
“Men take to all sorts of professions. Why, there is your friend
Bloundell-Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the
Continent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces
them. There is Bob O’Toole, with whom I was at school, who drives the
Ballynafad mail now, and carries honest Jack Finucane’s own
correspondence to that city. I know a man, sir, a doctor’s son,
like—well, don’t be angry, I meant nothing offensive—a doctor’s son, I
say, who was walking the hospitals here, and quarrelled with his
governor on questions of finance, and what did he do when he came to
his last five-pound note? he let his mustachios grow, went into a
provincial town, where he announced himself as Professor Spineto,
chiropodist to the Emperor of All the Russians, and by a happy
operation on the editor of the country newspaper, established himself
in practice, and lived reputably for three years. He has been
reconciled to his family, and has succeeded to his father’s gallypots.”
“Hang gallypots,” cried Pen. “I can’t drive a coach, cut corns, or
cheat at cards. There’s nothing else you propose.”
“Yes; there’s our own correspondent,” Warrington said. “Every man has
his secrets, look you. Before you told me the story of your
money-matters, I had no idea but that you were a gentleman of fortune,
for, with your confounded airs and appearance, anybody would suppose
you to be so. From what you tell me about your mother’s income, it is
clear that you must not lay any more hands on it. You can’t go on
spunging upon the women. You must pay off that trump of a girl. Laura
is her name?—here is your health, Laura!—and carry a hod rather than
ask for a shilling from home.”
“But how earn one?” asked Pen.
“How do I live, think you?” said the other. “On my younger brother’s
allowance, Pendennis? I have secrets of my own, my boy;” and here
Warrington’s countenance fell. “I made away with that allowance five
years ago: if I had made away with myself a little time before, it
would have been better. I have played off my own bat, ever since. I
don’t want much money. When my purse is out, I go to work and fill it,
and then lie idle like a serpent or an Indian, until I have digested
the mass. Look, I begin to feel empty,” Warrington said, and showed Pen
a long lean purse, with but a few sovereigns at one end of it.
“But how do you fill it?” said Pen.
“I write,” said Warrington. “I don’t tell the world that I do so,” he
added, with a blush. “I do not choose that questions should be asked:
or, perhaps, I am an ass, and don’t wish it to be said that George
Warrington writes for bread. But I write in the Law Reviews: look here,
these articles are mine.” And he turned over some sheets. “I write in a
newspaper now and then, of which a friend of mine is editor.” And
Warrington, going with Pendennis to the club one day, called for a file
of the Dawn, and pointed with his finger silently to one or two
articles, which Pen read with delight. He had no difficulty in
recognising the style afterwards—the strong thoughts and curt periods,
the sense, the satire, and the scholarship.
“I am not up to this,” said Pen, with a genuine admiration of his
friend’s powers. “I know very little about politics or history,
Warrington; and have but a smattering of letters. I can’t fly upon such
a wing as yours.”
“But you can on your own, my boy, which is lighter, and soars higher,
perhaps,” the other said, good-naturedly. “Those little scraps and
verses which I have seen of yours show me, what is rare in these days,
a natural gift, sir. You needn’t blush, you conceited young jackanapes.
You have thought so yourself any time these ten years. You have got the
sacred flame—a little of the real poetical fire, sir, I think; and all
our oil-lamps are nothing compared to that, though ever so well
trimmed. You are a poet, Pen, my boy,” and so speaking, Warrington
stretched out his broad hand, and clapped Pen on the shoulder.
Arthur was so delighted that the tears came into his eyes. “How kind
you are to me, Warrington!” he said.
“I like you, old boy,” said the other. “I was dev’lish lonely in
chambers, and wanted somebody, and the sight of your honest face
somehow pleased me. I liked the way you laughed at Lowton—that poor
good little snob. And, in fine, the reason why I cannot tell—but so it
is, young ’un. I’m alone in the world, sir; and I wanted some one to
keep me company;” and a glance of extreme kindness and melancholy
passed out of Warrington’s dark eyes.
Pen was too much pleased with his own thoughts to perceive the sadness
of the friend who was complimenting him. “Thank you, Warrington,” he
said, “thank you for your friendship to me, and—and what you say about
me. I have often thought I was a poet. I will be one—I think I am one,
as you say so, though the world mayn’t. Is it—is it the Ariadne in
Naxos which you liked (I was only eighteen when I wrote it), or the
Prize Poem?”
Warrington burst into a roar of laughter. “Why, young goose,” he yelled
out—“of all the miserable weak rubbish I ever tried, Ariadne in Naxos
is the most mawkish and disgusting. The Prize Poem is so pompous and
feeble, that I’m positively surprised, sir, it didn’t get the medal.
You don’t suppose that you are a serious poet, do you, and are going to
cut out Milton and Aeschylus? Are you setting up to be a Pindar, you
absurd little tom-tit, and fancy you have the strength and pinion which
the Theban eagle bear, sailing with supreme dominion through the azure
fields of air? No, my boy, I think you can write a magazine article,
and turn a pretty copy of verses; that’s what I think of you.”
“By Jove!” said Pen, bouncing up and stamping his foot, “I’ll show you
that I am a better man than you think for.”
Warrington only laughed the more, and blew twenty-four puffs rapidly
out of his pipe by way of reply to Pen.
An opportunity for showing his skill presented itself before very long.
That eminent publisher, Mr. Bacon (formerly Bacon and Bungay) of
Paternoster Row, besides being the proprietor of the legal Review, in
which Mr. Warrington wrote, and of other periodicals of note and
gravity, used to present to the world every year a beautiful gilt
volume called the Spring Annual, edited by the Lady Violet Lebas, and
numbering amongst its contributors not only the most eminent, but the
most fashionable, poets of our time. Young Lord Dodo’s poems first
appeared in this miscellany—the Honourable Percy Popjoy, whose
chivalrous ballads have obtained him such a reputation—Bedwin Sands’s
Eastern Ghazuls, and many more of the works of our young nobles, were
fast given to the world in the Spring Annual, which has since shared
the fate of other vernal blossoms, and perished out of the world. The
book was daintily illustrated with pictures of reigning beauties, or
other prints of a tender and voluptuous character; and, as these plates
were prepared long beforehand, requiring much time in engraving, it was
the eminent poets who had to write to the plates, and not the painters
who illustrated the poems.
One day, just when this volume was on the eve of publication, it
chanced that Mr. Warrington called in Paternoster Row to talk with Mr.
Hack, Mr. Bacon’s reader and general manager of publications—for Mr.
Bacon, not having the least taste in poetry or in literature of any
kind, wisely employed the services of a professional gentleman.
Warrington, then, going into Mr. Hack’s room on business of his own,
found that gentleman with a bundle of proof plates and sheets of the
Spring Annual before him, and glanced at some of them.
Percy Popjoy had written some verses to illustrate one of the pictures,
which was called The Church Porch. A Spanish damsel was hastening to
church with a large prayer-book; a youth in a cloak was hidden in a
niche watching this young woman. The picture was pretty: but the great
genius of Percy Popjoy had deserted him, for he had made the most
execrable verses which ever were perpetrated by a young nobleman.
Warrington burst out laughing as he read the poem: and Mr. Hack laughed
too but with rather a rueful face.—“It won’t do,” he said, “the public
won’t stand it. Bungay’s people are going to bring out a very good
book, and have set up Miss Bunyan against Lady Violet. We have most
titles to be sure—but the verses are too bad. Lady Violet herself owns
it; she’s busy with her own poem; what’s to be done? We can’t lose the
plate. The governor gave sixty pounds for it.”
“I know a fellow who would do some verses, I think,” said Warrington.
“Let me take the plate home in my pocket: and send to my chambers in
the morning for the verses. You’ll pay well, of course.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Hack; and Warrington, having despatched his own
business, went home to Mr. Pen, plate in hand.
“Now, boy, here’s a chance for you. Turn me off a copy of verses to
this.”
“What’s this? A Church Porch—A lady entering it, and a youth out of a
wine-shop window ogling her.—What the deuce am I to do with it?”
“Try,” said Warrington. “Earn your livelihood for once, you who long so
to do it.”
“Well, I will try,” said Pen.
“And I’ll go out to dinner,” said Warrington, and left Mr. Pen in a
brown study.
When Warrington came home that night, at a very late hour, the verses
were done. “There they are,” said Pen. “I’ve screwed ’em out at last. I
think they’ll do.”
“I think, they will,” said Warrington, after reading them; they ran as
follows:—
The Church Porch
Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Sometimes I hover,
And at the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.
The Minster bell tolls out
Above the city’s rout
And noise and humming
They’ve stopp’d the chiming bell,
I hear the organ’s swell
She’s coming, she’s coming!
My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither,
With modest eyes downcast.
She comes—she’s here—she’s past.
May Heaven go with her!
Kneel undisturb’d, fair saint,
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly.
I will not enter there,
To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.
But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,
Lingering a minute,
Like outcast spirits, who wait
And see through Heaven’s gate
Angels within it.
“Have you got any more, young fellow?” asked Warrington. “We must make
them give you a couple of guineas a page; and if the verses are liked,
why, you’ll get an entree into Bacon’s magazines, and may turn a decent
penny.”
Pen examined his portfolio and found another ballad which he thought
might figure with advantage in the Spring Annual, and consigning these
two precious documents to Warrington, the pair walked from the Temple
to the famous haunt of the Muses and their masters, Paternoster Row.
Bacon’s shop was an ancient low-browed building, with a few of the
books published by the firm displayed in the windows, under a bust of
my Lord of Verulam, and the name of Mr. Bacon in brass on the private
door. Exactly opposite to Bacon’s house was that of Mr. Bungay, which
was newly painted and elaborately decorated in the style of the
seventeenth century, so that you might have fancied stately Mr. Evelyn
passing over the threshold, or curious Mr. Pepys examining the books in
the window. Warrington went into the shop of Mr. Bacon, but Pen stayed
without. It was agreed that his ambassador should act for him entirely;
and the young fellow paced up and down the street in a very nervous
condition, until he should learn the result of the negotiation. Many a
poor devil before him has trodden those flags, with similar cares and
anxieties at his heels, his bread and his fame dependent upon the
sentence of his magnanimous patrons of the Row. Pen looked at all the
wonders of all the shops, and the strange variety of literature which
they exhibit. In this were displayed black-letter volumes and books in
the clear pale types of Aldus and Elzevir: in the next, you might see
the Penny Horrific Register; the Halfpenny Annals of Crime and History
of the most celebrated murderers of all countries, The Raff’s Magazine,
The Larky Swell, and other publications of the penny press; whilst at
the next window, portraits of ill-favoured individuals, with
fac-similes of the venerated signatures of the Reverend Grimes Wapshot,
the Reverend Elias Howle, and the works written and the sermons
preached by them, showed the British Dissenter where he could find
mental pabulum. Hard by would be a little casement hung with emblems,
with medals and rosaries with little paltry prints of saints gilt and
painted, and books of controversial theology, by which the faithful of
the Roman opinion might learn a short way to deal with Protestants, at
a penny apiece, or ninepence the dozen for distribution; whilst in the
very next window you might see ‘Come out of Rome,’ a sermon preached at
the opening of the Shepherd’s Bush College, by John Thomas Lord Bishop
of Ealing. Scarce an opinion but has its expositor and its place of
exhibition in this peaceful old Paternoster Row, under the toll of the
bells of Saint Paul.
Pen looked in at all the windows and shops, as a gentleman who is going
to have an interview with the dentist examines the books on the
waiting-room table. He remembered them afterwards. It seemed to him
that Warrington would never come out; and indeed the latter was engaged
for some time in pleading his friend’s cause.
Pen’s natural conceit would have swollen immensely if he could but have
heard the report which Warrington gave of him. It happened that Mr.
Bacon himself had occasion to descend to Mr. Hack’s room whilst
Warrington was talking there, and Warrington, knowing Bacon’s
weaknesses, acted upon them with great adroitness in his friend’s
behalf. In the first place, he put on his hat to speak to Bacon, and
addressed him from the table on which he seated himself. Bacon liked to
be treated with rudeness by a gentleman, and used to pass it on to his
inferiors as boys pass the mark. “What! not know Mr. Pendennis, Mr.
Bacon?” Warrington said. “You can’t live much in the world, or you
would know him. A man of property in the West, of one of the most
ancient families in England, related to half the nobility in the
empire—he’s cousin to Lord Pontypool—he was one of the most
distinguished men at Oxbridge; he dines at Gaunt House every week.”
“Law bless me, you don’t say so, sir. Well—really—Law bless me now,”
said Mr. Bacon.
“I have just been showing Mr. Hack some of his verses, which he sat up
last night, at my request, to write; and Hack talks about giving him a
copy of the book—the what-d’-you-call-’em.”
“Law bless me now, does he? The what-d’-you-call-’em. Indeed!”
“‘The Spring Annual’ is its name,—as payment for those verses. You
don’t suppose that such a man as Mr. Arthur Pendennis gives up a dinner
at Gaunt House for nothing? You know as well as anybody, that the men
of fashion want to be paid.”
“That they do, Mr. Warrington, sir,” said the publisher.
“I tell you he’s a star; he’ll make a name, sir. He’s a new man, sir.”
“They’ve said that of so many of those young swells, Mr. Warrington,”
the publisher interposed, with a sigh. “There was Lord Viscount Dodo,
now; I gave his Lordship a good bit of money for his poems, and only
sold eighty copies. Mr. Popjoy’s Hadgincourt, sir, fell dead.”
“Well, then, I’ll take my man over to Bungay,” Warrington said, and
rose from the table. This threat was too much for Mr. Bacon, who was
instantly ready to accede to any reasonable proposal of Mr.
Warrington’s, and finally asked his manager what those proposals were?
When he heard that the negotiation only related as yet to a couple of
ballads, which Mr. Warrington offered for the Spring Annual, Mr. Bacon
said, “Law bless you, give him a check directly;” and with this paper
Warrington went out to his friend, and placed it, grinning, in Pen’s
hands. Pen was as elated as if somebody had left him a fortune. He
offered Warrington a dinner at Richmond instantly. “What should he go
and buy for Laura and his mother? He must buy something for them.”
“They’ll like the book better than anything else,” said Warrington,
“with the young one’s name to the verses, printed among the swells.”
“Thank God! thank God!” cried Arthur, “I needn’t be a charge upon the
old mother. I can pay off Laura now. I can get my own living. I can
make my own way.”
“I can marry the grand vizier’s daughter: I can purchase a house in
Belgrave Square; I can build a fine castle in the air!” said
Warrington, pleased with the other’s exultation. “Well, you may get
bread and cheese, Pen: and I own it tastes well, the bread which you
earn yourself.”
They had a magnum of claret at dinner at the club that day, at Pen’s
charges. It was long since he had indulged in such a luxury, but
Warrington would not baulk him: and they drank together to the health
of the Spring Annual.
It never rains but it pours, according to the proverb; so very speedily
another chance occurred, by which Mr. Pen was to be helped in his
scheme of making a livelihood. Warrington one day threw him a letter
across the table, which was brought by a printer’s boy, “from Captain
Shandon, sir”—the little emissary said: and then went and fell asleep
on his accustomed bench in the passage. He paid many a subsequent visit
there, and brought many a message to Pen.
F. P. Tuesday Morning.
“MY DEAR SIR,—Bungay will be here to-day, about the Pall Mall Gazette.
You would be the very man to help us with a genuine West-end
article,—you understand—dashing, trenchant, and d—— aristocratic. Lady
Hipshaw will write; but she’s not much you know, and we’ve two lords;
but the less they do the better. We must have you. We’ll give you your
own terms, and we’ll make a hit with the Gazette.
“Shall B. come and see you, or can you look in upon me here?—Ever
yours,
“C. S.”
“Some more opposition,” Warrington said, when Pen had read the note.
“Bungay and Bacon are at daggers drawn; each married the sister of the
other, and they were for some time the closest friends and partners.
Hack says it was Mrs. Bungay who caused all the mischief between the
two; whereas Shandon, who reads for Bungay a good deal, says Mrs. Bacon
did the business; but I don’t know which is right, Peachum or Lockit.
But since they have separated, it is a furious war between the two
publishers; and no sooner does one bring out a book of travels, or
poems, a magazine or periodical, quarterly, or monthly, or weekly, or
annual, but the rival is in the field with something similar. I have
heard poor Shandon tell with great glee how he made Bungay give a grand
dinner at Blackwall to all his writers, by saying that Bacon had
invited his corps to an entertainment at Greenwich. When Bungay engaged
your celebrated friend Mr. Wagg to edit the ‘Londoner,’ Bacon
straightway rushed off and secured Mr. Grindle to give his name to the
‘Westminster Magazine.’ When Bacon brought out his comic Irish novel of
‘Barney Brallaghan,’ off went Bungay to Dublin, and produced his
rollicking Hibernian story of ‘Looney MacTwolter.’ When Doctor Hicks
brought out his ‘Wanderings in Mesopotamia’ under Bacon’s auspices,
Bungay produced Professor Sandiman’s ‘Researches in Zahara;’ and Bungay
is publishing his ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ as a counterpoise to Bacon’s
‘Whitehall Review.’ Let us go and hear about the ‘Gazette.’ There may
be a place for you in it, Pen, my boy. We will go and see Shandon. We
are sure to find him at home.”
“Where does he live?” asked Pen.
“In the Fleet Prison,” Warrington said. “And very much at home he is
there, too. He is the king of the place.”
Pen had never seen this scene of London life, and walked with no small
interest in at the grim gate of that dismal edifice. They went through
the anteroom, where the officers and janitors of the place were seated,
and passing in at the wicket, entered the prison. The noise and the
crowd, the life and the shouting, the shabby bustle of the place,
struck and excited Pen. People moved about ceaselessly and restless,
like caged animals in a menagerie. Men were playing at fives. Others
pacing and tramping: this one in colloquy with his lawyer in dingy
black—that one walking sadly, with his wife by his side, and a child on
his arm. Some were arrayed in tattered dressing-gowns, and had a look
of rakish fashion. Everybody seemed to be busy, humming, and on the
move. Pen felt as if he choked in the place, and as if the door being
locked upon him they never would let him out.
They went through a court up a stone staircase, and through passages
full of people, and noise, and cross lights, and black doors clapping
and banging;—Pen feeling as one does in a feverish morning dream. At
last the same little runner who had brought Shandon’s note, and had
followed them down Fleet Street munching apples, and who showed the way
to the two gentlemen through the prison, said, “This is the Captain’s
door,” and Mr. Shandon’s voice from within bade them enter.
The room, though bare, was not uncheerful. The sun was shining in at
the window—near which sate a lady at work, who had been gay and
beautiful once, but in whose faded face kindness and tenderness still
beamed. Through all his errors and reckless mishaps and misfortunes,
this faithful creature adored her husband, and thought him the best and
cleverest, as indeed he was one of the kindest of men. Nothing ever
seemed to disturb the sweetness of his temper; not debts: not duns: not
misery: not the bottle, not his wife’s unhappy position, or his
children’s ruined chances. He was perfectly fond of wife and children
after his fashion: he always had the kindest words and smiles for them,
and ruined them with the utmost sweetness of temper. He never could
refuse himself or any man any enjoyment which his money could purchase;
he would share his last guinea with Jack and Tom, and we may be sure he
had a score of such retainers. He would sign his name at the back of
any man’s bill, and never pay any debt of his own. He would write on
any side, and attack himself or another man with equal indifference. He
was one of the wittiest, the most amiable, and the most incorrigible of
Irishmen. Nobody could help liking Charley Shandon who saw him once,
and those whom he ruined could scarcely be angry with him.
When Pen and Warrington arrived, the Captain (he had been in an Irish
militia regiment once, and the title remained with him) was sitting on
his bed in a torn dressing-gown, with a desk on his knees, at which he
was scribbling as fast as his rapid pen could write. Slip after slip of
paper fell off the desk wet on to the ground. A picture of his children
was hung up over his bed, and the youngest of them was pattering about
the room.
Opposite the Captain sate Mr. Bungay, a portly man of stolid
countenance, with whom the little child had been trying a conversation.
“Papa’s a very clever man,” said she; “mamma says so.”
“Oh, very,” said Mr. Bungay.
“And you’re a very rich man, Mr. Bundy,” cried the child, who could
hardly speak plain.
“Mary!” said Mamma, from her work.
“Oh, never mind,” Bungay roared out with a great laugh; “no harm in
saying I’m rich—he, he—I am pretty well off, my little dear.”
“If you’re rich, why don’t you take papa out of piz’n?” asked the
child.
Mamma at this began to wipe her eyes with the work on which she was
employed. (The poor lady had hung curtains up in the room, had brought
the children’s picture and placed it there, and had made one or two
attempts to ornament it.) Mamma began to cry; Mr. Bungay turned red,
and looked fiercely out of his bloodshot little eyes; Shandon’s pen
went on, and Pen and Warrington arrived with their knock.
Captain Shandon looked up from his work. “How do you do, Mr.
Warrington,” he said. “I’ll speak to you in a minute. Please sit down,
gentlemen, if you can find places,” and away went the pen again.
Warrington pulled forward an old portmanteau—the only available
seat—and sate down on it, with a bow to Mrs. Shandon and a nod to
Bungay: the child came and looked at Pen solemnly and in a couple of
minutes the swift scribbling ceased; and Shandon, turning the desk over
on the bed, stooped and picked up the papers.
“I think this will do,” said he. “It’s the prospectus for the Pall Mall
Gazette.”
“And here’s the money for it,” Mr. Bungay said, laying down a
five-pound note. “I’m as good as my word, I am. When I say I’ll pay, I
pay.”
“Faith that’s more than some of us can say,” said Shandon, and he
eagerly clapped the note into his pocket.