PENDENNIS OF BONIFACE.
[Illustration]
Our friend Pen was not sorry when his Mentor took leave of the young
gentleman on the second day after the arrival of the pair in Oxbridge,
and we may be sure that the major on his part was very glad to have
discharged his duty, and to have the duty over. More than three months
of precious time had that martyr of a major given up to his nephew.--Was
ever selfish man called upon to make a greater sacrifice? Do you know
many men or majors who would do as much? A man will lay down his head,
or peril his life for his honor, but let us be shy how we ask him to
give up his ease or his heart's desire. Very few of us can bear that
trial. Say, worthy reader, if thou hast peradventure a beard, wouldst
thou do as much? I will not say that a woman will not. They are used to
it; we take care to accustom them to sacrifices: but, my good sir, the
amount of self-denial which you have probably exerted through life, when
put down to your account elsewhere, will not probably swell the balance
on the credit side much. Well, well, there is no use in speaking of such
ugly matters, and you are too polite to use a vulgar _tu quoque_. But
I wish to state once for all that I greatly admire the major for his
conduct during the past quarter, and think that he has quite a right to
be pleased at getting a holiday. Foker and Pen saw him off in the coach,
and the former young gentleman gave particular orders to the coachman
to take care of that gentleman inside. It pleased the elder Pendennis to
have his nephew in the company of a young fellow who would introduce him
to the best set of the University. The major rushed off to London and
thence to Cheltenham, from which watering-place he descended upon some
neighboring great houses, whereof the families were not gone abroad, and
where good shooting and company was to be had.
A quarter of the space which custom has awarded to works styled the
Serial Nature, has been assigned to the account of one passage in Pen's
career, and it is manifest that the whole of his adventures can not be
treated at a similar length, unless some descendant of the chronicler of
Pen's history should take up the pen at his decease, and continue the
narrative for the successors of the present generation of readers. We
are not about to go through the young fellow's academical career with,
by any means, a similar minuteness. Alas, the life of such boys does not
bear telling altogether. I wish it did. I ask you, does yours? As long
as what we call our honor is clear, I suppose your mind is pretty easy.
Women are pure, but not men. Women are unselfish, but not men. And I
would not wish to say of poor Arthur Pendennis that he was worse than
his neighbors, only that his neighbors are bad, for the most part. Let
us have the candor to own as much at least. Can you point out ten
spotless men of your acquaintance? Mine is pretty large, but I can't
find ten saints in the list.
During the first term of Mr. Pen's academical life, he attended
classical and mathematical lectures with tolerable assiduity; but
discovering, before very long time, that he had little taste or genius
for the pursuing of the exact sciences, and being, perhaps, rather
annoyed that one or two very vulgar young men, who did not even use
straps to their trowsers, so as to cover the abominably thick and
coarse shoes and stockings which they wore, beat him completely in the
lecture-room, he gave up his attendance at that course, and announced to
his fond parent that he proposed to devote himself exclusively to the
cultivation of Greek and Roman literature.
Mrs. Pendennis was, for her part, quite satisfied that her darling boy
should pursue that branch of learning for which he had the greatest
inclination; and only besought him not to ruin his health by too much
study, for she had heard the most melancholy stories of young students
who, by over fatigue, had brought on brain-fevers and perished untimely
in the midst of their university career. And Pen's health, which was
always delicate, was to be regarded, as she justly said, beyond all
considerations or vain honors. Pen, although not aware of any lurking
disease which was likely to endanger his life, yet kindly promised his
mamma not to sit up reading too late of nights, and stuck to his word in
this respect with a great deal more tenacity of resolution than he
exhibited upon some other occasions, when, perhaps, he was a little
remiss.
Presently he began too to find that he learned little good in the
classical lecture. His fellow-students there were too dull, as in
mathematics they were too learned for him. Mr. Buck, the tutor, was no
better a scholar than many a fifth-form boy at Gray Friars; might have
some stupid humdrum notions about the meter and grammatical construction
of a passage of AEschylus or Aristophanes, but had no more notion of the
poetry than Mrs. Binge, his bed-maker; and Pen grew weary of hearing the
dull students and tutor blunder through a few lines of a play, which he
could read in a tenth part of the time which they gave to it. After all,
private reading, as he began to perceive, was the only study which was
really profitable to a man; and he announced to his mamma, that he
should read by himself a great deal more, and in public a great deal
less. That excellent woman knew no more about Homer than she did about
algebra, but she was quite contented with Pen's arrangements regarding
his course of studies, and felt perfectly confident that her dear boy
would get the place which he merited.
Pen did not come home until after Christmas, a little to the fond
mother's disappointment, and Laura's, who was longing for him to make a
fine snow fortification, such as he had made three winters before. But
he was invited to Logwood, Lady Agnes Foker's, where there were private
theatricals, and a gay Christmas party of very fine folks, some of them
whom Major Pendennis would, on no account, have his nephew neglect.
However, he staid at home for the last three weeks of the vacation,
and Laura had the opportunity of remarking what a quantity of fine new
clothes he brought with him, and his mother admired his improved
appearance and manly and decided tone.
He did not come home at Easter; but when he arrived for the long
vacation, he brought more smart clothes: appearing in the morning in
wonderful shooting-jackets, with remarkable buttons; and in the evening
in gorgeous velvet waistcoats, with richly-embroidered cravats, and
curious linen. And as she pried about his room, she saw, oh, such a
beautiful dressing-case, with silver mountings, and a quantity of lovely
rings and jewelry. And he had a new French watch and gold chain, in
place of the big old chronometer, with its bunch of jingling seals,
which had hung from the fob of John Pendennis, and by the second-hand
of which the defunct doctor had felt many a patient's pulse in his time.
It was but a few months back Pen had longed for this watch, which he
thought the most splendid and august time-piece in the world; and just
before he went to college, Helen had taken it out of her trinket-box
(where it had remained unwound since the death of her husband) and given
it to Pen with a solemn and appropriate little speech respecting his
father's virtues and the proper use of time. This portly and valuable
chronometer, Pen now pronounced to be out of date, and, indeed, made
some comparisons between it and a warming-pan, which Laura thought
disrespectful, and he left the watch in a drawer, in the company of
soiled primrose gloves, cravats which had gone out of favor, and of that
other school watch which has once before been mentioned in this history.
Our old friend, Rebecca, Pen pronounced to be no longer up to his
weight, and swapped her away for another and more powerful horse, for
which he had to pay rather a heavy figure. Mrs. Pendennis gave the boy
the money for the new horse; and Laura cried when Rebecca was fetched
away.
Also Pen brought a large box of cigars, branded _Colorados_,
_Afrancesados_, _Telescopios_, Fudson, Oxford-street, or by some such
strange titles, and began to consume these not only about the stables
and green-houses, where they were very good for Helen's plants, but in
his own study, of which practice his mother did not at first approve.
But he was at work upon a prize-poem, he said, and could not compose
without his cigar, and quoted the late lamented Lord Byron's lines in
favor of the custom of smoking. As he was smoking to such good purpose,
his mother could not, of course, refuse permission: in fact, the good
soul coming into the room one day in the midst of Pen's labors (he was
consulting a novel which had recently appeared, for the cultivation of
the light literature of his own country as well as of foreign nations
became every student)--Helen, we say, coming into the room, and finding
Pen on the sofa at this work, rather than disturb him, went for a
light-box and his cigar-case to his bed-room which was adjacent, and
actually put the cigar into his mouth and lighted the match at which he
kindled it. Pen laughed, and kissed his mother's hand as it hung fondly
over the back of the sofa. "Dear old mother," he said, "if I were to
tell you to burn the house down, I think you would do it." And it is
very likely that Mr. Pen was right, and that the foolish woman would
have done almost as much for him as he said.
Besides the works of English "light literature" which this diligent
student devoured, he brought down boxes of the light literature of the
neighboring country of France: into the leaves of which when Helen
dipped, she read such things as caused her to open her eyes with wonder.
But Pen showed her that it was not he who made the books, though
it was absolutely necessary that he should keep up his French by an
acquaintance with the most celebrated writers of the day, and that it
was as clearly his duty to read the eminent Paul de Kock, as to study
Swift or Moliere. And Mrs. Pendennis yielded with a sigh of perplexity.
But Miss Laura was warned off the books, both by his anxious mother, and
that rigid moralist Mr. Arthur Pendennis himself, who, however _he_
might be called upon to study every branch of literature in order to
form his mind and to perfect his style, would by no means prescribe such
a course of reading to a young lady whose business in life was very
different.
In the course of this long vacation Mr. Pen drank up the bin of
claret which his father had laid in, and of which we have heard the son
remark, that there was not a headache in a hogshead; and this wine being
exhausted, he wrote for a further supply to "his wine merchants,"
Messrs. Binney and Latham of Mark Lane, London: from whom, indeed, old
Doctor Portman had recommended Pen to get a supply of port and sherry on
going to college. "You will have, no doubt, to entertain your young
friends at Boniface with wine parties," the honest rector had remarked
to the lad. "They used to be customary at college in my time, and I
would advise you to employ an honest and respectable house in London for
your small stock of wine, rather than to have recourse to the Oxbridge
tradesmen, whose liquor, if I remember rightly, was both deleterious in
quality and exorbitant in price." And the obedient young gentleman took
the doctor's advice, and patronized Messrs. Binney and Latham at the
rector's suggestion.
So when he wrote orders for a stock of wine to be sent down to the
cellars at Fairoaks, he hinted that Messrs. B. and L. might send in his
university account for wine at the same time with the Fairoaks bill.
The poor widow was frightened at the amount. But Pen laughed at her
old-fashioned views, said that the bill was moderate, that every body
drank claret and champagne now, and, finally, the widow paid, feeling
dimly, that the expenses of her household were increasing considerably,
and that her narrow income would scarce suffice to meet them. But they
were only occasional. Pen merely came home for a few weeks at the
vacation. Laura and she might pinch when he was gone. In the brief time
he was with them ought they not to make him happy?
Arthur's own allowances were liberal all this time; indeed, much more
so than those of the sons of far more wealthy men. Years before, the
thrifty and affectionate John Pendennis, whose darling project it had
ever been to give his son a university education, and those advantages
of which his own father's extravagance had deprived him, had begun
laying by a store of money which he called Arthur's Education Fund. Year
after year in his book his executors found entries of sums vested as
A. E. F., and during the period subsequent to her husband's decease,
and before Pen's entry at college, the widow had added sundry sums
to this fund, so that when Arthur went up to Oxbridge it reached no
inconsiderable amount. Let him be liberally allowanced, was Major
Pendennis's maxim. Let him make his first _entree_ into the world as a
gentleman, and take his place with men of good rank and station: after
giving it to him, it will be his own duty to hold it. There is no such
bad policy as stinting a boy--or putting him on a lower allowance than
his fellows. Arthur will have to face the world and fight for himself
presently. Meanwhile we shall have procured for him good friends,
gentlemanly habits, and have him well backed and well trained against
the time when the real struggle comes. And these liberal opinions the
major probably advanced, both because they were just, and because he
was not dealing with his own money.
Thus young Pen, the only son of an estated country gentleman, with a
good allowance, and a gentlemanlike bearing and person, looked to be
a lad of much more consequence than he was really; and was held by
the Oxbridge authorities, tradesmen, and undergraduates, as quite a
young buck and member of the aristocracy. His manner was frank, brave,
and perhaps a little impertinent, as becomes a high-spirited youth. He
was perfectly generous and free-handed with his money, which seemed
pretty plentiful. He loved joviality, and had a good voice for a song.
Boat-racing had not risen in Pen's time to the _fureur_ which, as we are
given to understand, it has since attained in the University; and riding
and tandem-driving were the fashions of the ingenuous youth. Pen rode
well to hounds, appeared in pink, as became a young buck, and not
particularly extravagant in equestrian or any other amusement, yet
managed to run up a fine bill at Nile's the livery stable-keeper, and
in a number of other quarters. In fact, this lucky young gentleman had
almost every taste to a considerable degree. He was very fond of books
of all sorts: Doctor Portman had taught him to like rare editions, and
his own taste led him to like beautiful bindings. It was marvelous
what tall copies, and gilding, and marbling, and blind-tooling, the
booksellers and binders put upon Pen's book-shelves. He had a very
fair taste in matters of art, and a keen relish for prints of a high
school--none of your French opera dancers, or tawdry racing prints, such
as had delighted the simple eyes of Mr. Spicer, his predecessor--but
your Stranges, and Rembrandt etchings, and Wilkies before the letter,
with which his apartments were furnished presently in the most perfect
good taste, as was allowed in the University, where this young fellow
got no small reputation. We have mentioned that he exhibited a certain
partiality for rings, jewelry, and fine raiment of all sorts; and it
must be owned that Mr. Pen, during his time at the University, was
rather a dressy man, and loved to array himself in splendor. He and his
polite friends would dress themselves out with as much care in order
to go and dine at each others' rooms, as other folks would who were
going to enslave a mistress. They said he used to wear rings over
his kid gloves, which he always denies; but what follies will not youth
perpetrate with its own admirable gravity and simplicity? That he took
perfumed baths is a truth; and he used to say that he took them after
meeting certain men of a very low set in hall.
In Pen's second year, when Miss Fotheringay made her chief hit in
London, and scores of prints were published of her, Pen had one of these
hung in his bed-room, and confided to the men of his set how awfully,
how wildly, how madly, how passionately, he had loved that woman. He
showed them in confidence the verses that he had written to her, and
his brow would darken, his eyes roll, his chest heave with emotion as
he recalled that fatal period of his life, and described the woes and
agonies which he had suffered. The verses were copied out, handed about,
sneered at, admired, passed from coterie to coterie. There are few
things which elevate a lad in the estimation of his brother boys, more
than to have a character for a great and romantic passion. Perhaps there
is something noble in it at all times--among very young men it is
considered heroic.--Pen was pronounced a tremendous fellow. They said he
had almost committed suicide: that he had fought a duel with a baronet
about her. Freshmen pointed him out to each other. As at the promenade
time at two o'clock he swaggered out of college, surrounded by his
cronies, he was famous to behold. He was elaborately attired. He would
ogle the ladies who came to lionize the University, and passed before
him on the arms of happy gownsmen, and give his opinion upon their
personal charms, or their toilets, with the gravity of a critic whose
experience entitled him to speak with authority. Men used to say that
they had been walking with Pendennis, and were as pleased to be seen
in his company as some of us would be if we walked with a duke down
Pall Mall. He and the proctor capped each other as they met, as if
they were rival powers, and the men hardly knew which was the greater.
[Illustration]
In fact, in the course of his second year, Arthur Pendennis had become
one of the men of fashion in the University. It is curious to watch
that facile admiration, and simple fidelity of youth. They hang round a
leader: and wonder at him, and love him, and imitate him. No generous
boy ever lived, I suppose, that has not had some wonderment of
admiration for another boy; and Monsieur Pen at Oxbridge had his school,
his faithful band of friends, and his rivals. When the young men heard
at the haberdashers' shops that Mr. Pendennis of Boniface had just
ordered a crimson satin cravat, you would see a couple of dozen crimson
satin cravats in Main-street in the course of the week--and Simon, the
jeweler, was known to sell no less than two gross of Pendennis pins,
from a pattern which the young gentleman had selected in his shop.
Now if any person with an arithmetical turn of mind will take the
trouble to calculate what a sum of money it would cost a young man to
indulge freely in all the above propensities which we have said Mr.
Pen possessed, it will be seen that a young fellow, with such liberal
tastes and amusements, must needs in the course of two or three years
spend or owe a very handsome sum of money. We have said our friend Pen
had not a calculating turn. No one propensity of his was outrageously
extravagant; and it is certain that Paddington's tailor's account;
Guttlebury's cook's bill for dinners; Dillon Tandy's bill with Finn, the
print-seller, for Raphael-Morghens, and Landseer proofs; and Wormall's
dealings with Parkton, the great bookseller, for Aldine editions,
black-letter folios, and richly illuminated Missals of the XVI. Century;
and Snaffle's or Foker's score with Nile the horse-dealer, were, each
and all of them, incomparably greater than any little bills which Mr.
Pen might run up with the above-mentioned tradesmen. But Pendennis of
Boniface had the advantage over all these young gentleman, his friends
and associates, of a universality of taste: and whereas young Lord
Paddington did not care twopence for the most beautiful print, or to
look into any gilt frame that had not a mirror within it; and Guttlebury
did not mind in the least how he was dressed, and had an aversion for
horse exercise, nay a terror of it; and Snaffle never read any printed
works but the "Racing Calender" or "Bell's Life," or cared for any
manuscript except his greasy little scrawl of a betting-book:--our
Catholic-minded young friend occupied himself in every one of the
branches of science or pleasure above-mentioned, and distinguished
himself tolerably in each.
Hence young Pen got a prodigious reputation in the University, and was
hailed as a sort of Crichton; and as for the English verse prize, in
competition for which we have seen him busily engaged at Fairoaks, Jones
of Jesus carried it that year certainly, but the undergraduates thought
Pen's a much finer poem, and he had his verses printed at his own
expense, and distributed in gilt morocco covers among his acquaintance.
I found a copy of it lately in a dusty corner of Mr. Pen's book-cases,
and have it before me this minute bound up in a collection of old
Oxbridge tracts, University statutes, prize-poems by successful and
unsuccessful candidates, declamations recited in the college chapel,
speeches delivered at the Union Debating Society, and inscribed by
Arthur with his name and college, Pendennis--Boniface; or presented to
him by his affectionate friend Thompson or Jackson, the author. How
strange the epigraphs look in those half-boyish hands, and what a thrill
the sight of the documents gives one after the lapse of a few lusters!
How fate, since that time has removed some, estranged others, dealt
awfully with all. Many a hand is cold that wrote those kindly memorials,
and that we pressed in the confident and generous grasp of youthful
friendship. What passions our friendships were in those old days, how
artless and void of doubt! How the arm you were never tired of having
linked in yours under the fair college avenues or by the river side,
where it washes Magdalen Gardens, or Christ Church Meadows, or winds by
Trinity and King's, was withdrawn of necessity, when you entered
presently the world, and each parted to push and struggle for himself
through the great mob on the way through life! Are we the same men now
that wrote those inscriptions--that read those poems? that delivered or
heard those essays and speeches, so simple, so pompous, so ludicrously
solemn; parodied so artlessly from books, and spoken with smug chubby
faces, and such an admirable aping of wisdom and gravity? Here is the
book before me: it is scarcely fifteen years old. Here is Jack moaning
with despair and Byronic misanthropy, whose career at the University
was one of unmixed milk-punch. Here is Tom's daring Essay in defense
of suicide and of republicanism in general _apropos_ of the death of
Roland and the Girondins--Tom's, who wears the starchest tie in all the
diocese, and would go to Smithfield rather than eat a beefsteak on a
Friday in Lent. Here is Bob of the ---- Circuit, who has made a fortune
in railroad committees, and whose dinners are so good--bellowing out
with Tancred and Godfrey, "On to the breach, ye soldiers of the cross,
Scale the red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers,
twang your cross-bows well; On, bill and battle-ax and mangonel! Ply
battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours--_id Deus vult_."
After which comes a mellifluous description of the gardens of Sharon and
the maids of Salem, and a prophecy that roses shall deck the entire
country of Syria, and a speedy reign of peace be established--all in
undeniably decasyllabic lines, and the queerest aping of sense and
sentiment and poetry. And there are Essays and Poems along with these
grave parodies, and boyish exercises (which are at once frank and false,
and so mirthful, yet, somehow, so mournful), by youthful hands, that
shall never write more. Fate has interposed darkly, and the young voices
are silent, and the eager brains have ceased to work. This one had
genius and a great descent, and seemed to be destined for honors which
now are of little worth to him: that had virtue, learning, genius--every
faculty and endowment which might secure love, admiration and worldly
fame: an obscure and solitary churchyard contains the grave of many fond
hopes, and the pathetic stone which bids them farewell--I saw the sun
shining on it in the fall of last year, and heard the sweet village
choir raising anthems round about. What boots whether it be Westminster
or a little country spire which covers your ashes, or if, a few days
sooner or later, the world forgets you?
Amidst these friends then, and a host more, Pen passed more than two
brilliant and happy years of his life. He had his fill of pleasure and
popularity. No dinner or supper party was complete without him; and
Pen's jovial wit, and Pen's songs, and dashing courage, and frank and
manly bearing, charmed all the undergraduates, and even disarmed the
tutors who cried out at his idleness, and murmured about his extravagant
way of life. Though he became the favorite and leader of young men who
were much his superiors in wealth and station, he was much too generous
to endeavor to propitiate them by any meanness or cringing on his own
part, and would not neglect the humblest man of his acquaintance in
order to curry favor with the richest young grandee in the University.
His name is still remembered at the Union Debating Club, as one of
the brilliant orators of his day. By the way, from having been an
ardent Tory in his freshman's year, his principles took a sudden turn
afterward, and he became a Liberal of the most violent order. He avowed
himself a Dantonist and asserted that Louis the Sixteenth was served
right. And as for Charles the First, he vowed that he would chop off
that monarch's head with his own right hand were he then in the room at
the Union Debating Club, and had Cromwell no other executioner for the
traitor. He and Lord Magnus Charters, the Marquis of Runnymede's son,
before-mentioned, were the most truculent republicans of their day.
There are reputations of this sort made quite independent of the
collegiate hierarchy, in the republic of gownsmen. A man may be famous
in the honor-lists and entirely unknown to the undergraduates: who
elect kings and chieftains of their own, whom they admire and obey, as
negro-gangs have private black sovereigns in their own body, to whom
they pay an occult obedience, besides that which they publicly profess
for their owners and drivers. Among the young ones Pen became famous and
popular: not that he did much, but there was a general determination
that he could do a great deal if he chose. "Ah, if Pendennis of Boniface
would but try," the men said, "he might do any thing." He was backed for
the Greek Ode won by Smith of Trinity; every body was sure he would have
the Latin hexameter prize which Brown of St. John's, however, carried
off, and in this way, one university honor after another was lost by
him, until, after two or three failures, Mr. Pen ceased to compete. But
he got a declamation prize in his own college, and brought home to his
mother and Laura at Fairoaks, a set of prize-books begilt with the
college arms, and so big, well-bound, and magnificent, that these ladies
thought there had been no such prize ever given in a college before as
this of Pen's, and that he had won the very largest honor which Oxbridge
was capable of awarding.
As vacation after vacation and term after term passed away without the
desired news that Pen had sate for any scholarship or won any honor,
Doctor Portman grew mightily gloomy in his behavior toward Arthur,
and adopted a sulky grandeur of deportment toward him, which the lad
returned by a similar haughtiness. One vacation he did not call upon the
doctor at all, much to his mother's annoyance, who thought that it was a
privilege to enter the Rectory-house at Clavering, and listened to Dr.
Portman's antique jokes and stories, though ever so often repeated, with
unfailing veneration. "I can not stand the doctor's patronizing air,"
Pen said. "He's too kind to me, a great deal too fatherly. I have seen
in the world better men than him, and I am not going to bore myself by
listening to his dull old stories and drinking his stupid old port
wine." The tacit feud between Pen and the doctor made the widow nervous,
so that she too avoided Doctor Portman, and was afraid to go to the
Rectory when Arthur was at home.
One Sunday in the last long vacation, the wretched boy pushed his
rebellious spirit so far as not to go to church, and he was seen at
the gate of the Clavering Arms, smoking a cigar, in the face of the
congregation as it issued from St. Mary's. There was an awful sensation
in the village-society, Portman prophesied Pen's ruin after that, and
groaned in spirit over the rebellious young prodigal.
So did Helen tremble in her heart, and little Laura--Laura had grown to
be a fine young stripling by this time, graceful and fair, clinging
round Helen and worshiping her, with a passionate affection. Both of
these women felt that their boy was changed. He was no longer the
artless Pen of old days, so brave, so artless, so impetuous, and tender.
His face looked careworn and haggard, his voice had a deeper sound, and
tones more sarcastic. Care seemed to be pursuing him; but he only
laughed when his mother questioned him, and parried her anxious queries
with some scornful jest. Nor did he spend much of his vacations at home;
he went on visits to one great friend or another, and scared the quiet
pair at Fairoaks, by stories of great houses whither he had been
invited, and by talking of lords without their titles.
Honest Harry Foker, who had been the means of introducing Arthur
Pendennis to that set of young men at the University, from whose
society and connections Arthur's uncle expected that the lad would
get so much benefit; who had called for Arthur's first song at his first
supper-party; and who had presented him at the Barmecide Club where none
but the very best men of Oxbridge were admitted (it consisted in Pen's
time of six noblemen, eight gentlemen-pensioners, and twelve of the most
select commoners of the University), soon found himself left far behind
by the young freshman in the fashionable world of Oxbridge, and being a
generous and worthy fellow, without a spark of envy in his composition,
was exceedingly pleased at the success of his young _protege_, and
admired Pen quite as much as any of the other youth did. It was he
who followed Pen now, and quoted his sayings; learned his songs, and
retailed them at minor supper-parties, and was never weary of hearing
them from the gifted young poet's own mouth--for a good deal of the
time which Mr. Pen might have employed much more advantageously
in the pursuit of the regular scholastic studies was given up to the
composition of secular ballads, which he sang about at parties according
to university wont.
It had been as well for Arthur if the honest Foker had remained for
some time at college, for, with all his vivacity, he was a prudent
young man, and often curbed Pen's propensity to extravagance: but Foker's
collegiate career did not last very long after Arthur's entrance at
Boniface. Repeated differences with the university authorities caused
Mr. Foker to quit Oxbridge in an untimely manner. He would persist in
attending races on the neighboring Hungerford Heath, in spite of the
injunctions of his academic superiors. He never could be got to frequent
the chapel of the college with that regularity of piety which Alma Mater
demands from her children; tandems, which are abominations in the eyes
of the heads and tutors, were Foker's greatest delight, and so reckless
was his driving and frequent the accidents and upsets out of his drag
that Pen called taking a drive with him taking the "Diversions of
Purley;" finally, having a dinner-party at his rooms to entertain some
friends from London, nothing would satisfy Mr. Foker but painting Mr.
Buck's door vermilion, in which freak he was caught by the proctors;
and, although young Black Strap, the celebrated negro-fighter, who was
one of Mr. Foker's distinguished guests, and was holding the can of
paint while the young artist operated on the door, knocked down two of
the proctor's attendants and performed prodigies of valor, yet these
feats rather injured than served Foker, whom the proctor knew very well
and who was taken with the brush in his hand, and who was summarily
convened and sent down from the University.
The tutor wrote a very kind and feeling letter to Lady Agnes on the
subject, stating that every body was fond of the youth; that he never
meant harm to any mortal creature; that he, for his own part, would have
been delighted to pardon the harmless little boyish frolic, had not its
unhappy publicity rendered it impossible to look the freak over; and
breathing the most fervent wishes for the young fellow's welfare--wishes
no doubt sincere, for Foker, as we know, came of a noble family on his
mother's side, and on the other was heir to a great number of thousand
pounds a year.
"It don't matter," said Foker, talking over the matter with Pen--"a
little sooner or a little later, what is the odds? I should have been
plucked for my little-go again, I know I should--that Latin I can not
screw into my head, and my mamma's anguish would have broke out next
term. The governor will blow like an old grampus, I know he will--well,
we must stop till he gets his wind again. I shall probably go abroad and
improve my mind with foreign travel. Yes, _parly voo's_ the ticket.
It'ly, and that sort of thing. I'll go to Paris and learn to dance, and
complete my education. But it's not me I'm anxious about, Pen. As long
as people drink beer I don't care--it's about you I'm doubtful, my boy.
You're going too fast, and can't keep up the pace, I tell you. It's not
the fifty you owe me--pay it or not when you like--but it's the every
day pace, and I tell you it will kill you. You're livin' as if there
was no end to the money in the stockin' at home. You oughtn't to give
dinners, you ought to eat 'em. Fellows are glad to have you. You
oughtn't to owe horse bills, you ought to ride other chaps' nags. You
know no more about betting than I do about algebra: the chaps will win
your money as sure as you sport it. Hang me if you are not trying at
every thing. I saw you sit down to _ecarte_ last week at Trumpington's,
and taking your turn with the bones after Ringwood's supper. They'll
beat you at it, Pen, my boy, even if they play on the square, which I
don't say they don't, nor which I don't say they do, mind. But I wont
play with 'em. You're no match for 'em. You ain't up to their weight.
It's like little Black Strap standing up to Tom Spring--the Black's a
pretty fighter, but, Law bless you, his arm ain't long enough to touch
Tom--and I tell you, you're going it with fellers beyond your weight.
Look here--If you'll promise me never to bet nor touch a box nor a card,
I'll let you off the two ponies."
But Pen, laughingly, said, "that though it wasn't convenient to him
to pay the two ponies at that moment, he by no means wished to be let
off any just debts he owed;" and he and Foker parted, not without many
dark forebodings on the latter's part with regard to his friend, who,
Harry thought, was traveling speedily on the road to ruin.
"One must do at Rome as Rome does," Pen said, in a dandified manner,
jingling some sovereigns in his waistcoat-pocket. "A little quiet
play at _ecarte_ can't hurt a man who plays pretty well--I came away
fourteen sovereigns richer from Ringwood's supper, and, gad! I wanted the
money."--And he walked off, after having taken leave of poor Foker, who
went away without any beat of drum, or offer to drive the coach out of
Oxbridge, to superintend a little dinner which he was going to give at
his own rooms in Boniface, about which dinners, the cook of the college,
who had a great respect for Mr. Pendennis, always took especial pains
for his young favorite.