and I don't like to ask her for any more: and I asked that dd 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 honour to your wife that you wouldn't put your name to paper," "said Mr. Altamont, puffing at his cigar.

"Why does she leave me without pocket-money, then? Damme, I must have money,' I cried out the Baronet. "Oh, Am-, Oh, Altamont, I'm the most miserable beggar alive."

66 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-for ever, my dearest friend," cried Clavering.

"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-andtwenty 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 neighbours 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-if I don't play; and I don't intend to touch the confounded black and red and 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.

My

"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. lady locked up a'most all the bejewtary afore she went away, and he couldn't take away the picters and looking-glasses in a cab and he wouldn't spout the fenders and fire-irons-he ain't so bad as that. But he's got money somehow. He's so dam'd imperent when he have. A few nights ago I sor him at Vauxhall, where I was a polkin with Lady Hemly Babewood's gals-a werry 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. Morganand 'ere's your 'ealth-and I 'appened to 'ave on some of Clavering's abberdashery, and he sor it too: and he didn't 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."

"Play much?" asked Morgan.

"Not since the smash, When your Governor, and the lawyers, and my lady and him had that tremenduous scene:

he went down on his knees, my lady told Mrs. Bonner, as told me,-and swoar as he never more would touch a card or a dice, 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 Metternitch 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 every think. 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 consiquince, 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 Claveringyet, 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."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan-I can't do more than make an apologywill 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?"

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.

Pigeon 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-humour.

"What d' you think about Miss Amory, Lightfoot-tell us in confidence, now-Do you think we should do wellyou 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 that-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'leave 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 bed-room; 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 going 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 tete-a-tete of the two gentlemen was broken up by the entry of other gentlemen, members of the Club - when fashionable town-talk, politics, cribbage, and other amusements ensued, and the conversation became general.

The Gentleman's Club was held in the parlour of the Wheel of Fortune public-house, in a snug little bye-lane, leading out of one of the great streets of May Fair, and frequented by some of the most select gentlemen about town. Their masters' affairs, debts, intrigues, adventures; their ladies' good and bad qualities and quarrels with their husbands; all the family secrets were here discussed with perfect freedom and confidence, and here, when about to enter into a new situation, a gentleman was enabled to get every requisite information regarding the family of which he proposed to become a member. Liveries, it may be imagined, were excluded from this select precinct; and the powdered heads of the largest metropolitan footmen might bow down in vain entreating admission into the Gentleman's

Club. These outcast giants in plush took their beer in an outer apartment of the Wheel of Fortune, and could no more get an entry into the club room than a Pall Mall tradesman or a Lincoln's Inn attorney could get admission into Bays's or Spratt's. And it is because the conversation which we have been permitted to overhear here, in some measure explains the characters and bearings of our story, that we have ventured to introduce the reader into a society so exclusive.

CHAPTER LXI.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

A SHORT time after the piece of good fortune which befel Colonel Altamont at Epsom, that gentleman put into execution his projected foreign tour, and the chronicler of the polite world who goes down to London Bridge for the purpose of taking leave of the people of fashion who quit this country, announced that among the company on board the Soho to Antwerp last Saturday, were "Sir Robert, Lady, and the Misses Hodge; Mr. Serjent Kewsy, and Mrs. and Miss Kewsy; Colonel Altamont, Major Coddy," &c. The Colonel travelled in state, and as became a gentleman: he appeared in a rich travelling costume; he drank brandy-and-water freely during the passage and was not sick, as some of the other passengers were; and he was attended by his body servant, the faithful Irish legionary who had been for some time in waiting upon himself and Captain Strong in their chambers of Shepherd's Inn.

The Chevalier partook of a copious dinner at Blackwell with his departing friend the Colonel. and one or two others, who drank many healths to Altamont at that liberal gentleman's expense. Strong, old boy," the Chevalier's worthy chum said, if you want a little money, now's your time.

I'm

your man. You're a good feller, and have been a good feller to me, and a twenty-pound note, more or less, will make no odds to me.' "But Strong said,

No, he didn't want any money: he was flush, quite flush-" that is not flush enough to pay you back your last loan, Altamont, but quite able to carry on for some time to come"-and so, with a not uncordial greeting between them, the two parted. Had the possession of money really made Altamont more honest and amiable than he had hitherto been, or only caused him to seem more amiable in Strong's eyes? Perhaps he really was better, and money improved him. Perhaps it was the beauty of wealth Strong saw and respected. But he argued within himself, "This poor devil, this unlucky outcast of a returned convict, is ten times as good a fellow as my friend Sir Francis Clavering, Bart. He has pluck and honesty in his way. He will stick to a friend and face an enemy. The other never had courage to do either. And what is it that has put the poor devil under a cloud? He was only a little wild, and signed his father-in-law's name. Many a man has done worse, and come to no wrong, and holds his head up. Clave. ring does. No, he don't hold his head up: he never did in his best days." And Strong, perhaps, repented him of the falsehood which he had told to the free-handed Colonel, that he was not in want of money: but it was a falsehood on the side of honesty, and the Chevalier could not bring down his stomach to borrow a second time from his outlawed friend. Besides he could get on. Clavering had promised him some: not that Clavering's promises were much to be believed, but the Chevalier was of a hopeful turn, and trusted in many chances of catching his patron, and waylaying some of those stray remittances and supplies, in the procuring of which for his principal lay Mr. Strong's chief business.

He had grumbled about Altamont's companionship in the Shepherd's Inn chambers; but he found those lodgings more glum now without his partner than with him. The solitary life was not agreeable to his social soul; and he had got into extravagant and luxurious habits, too, having a servant at his command to run his errands, to arrange his toilettes, and to cook his meal. It was rather a

grand and touching sight now to see the portly and handsome gentleman painting his own boots, and broiling his own mutton chop. It has been before stated that the Chevalier had a wife, a Spanish lady of Vittoria, who had gone back to her friends, after a few months' union with the Captain, whose head she broke with a dish. He began to think whether he should not go back and see his Juanita. The Chevalier was growing melancholy after the departure of his friend the Colonel; or, to use his own picturesque expression, was "down on his luck." These moments of depression and intervals of ill-fortune occur constantly in the lives of heroes. Marius at Minturnæ, Charles Edward in the Highlands, Napoleon before Elba: -what great man has not been called upon to face evil fortune?

From Clavering no supplies were to be had for some time. The five-andtwenty pounds, or "pony" which the exemplary Baronet had received from Mr. Altamont, had fled out of Clavering's keeping as swiftly as many previous ponies. He had been down the river with a choice party of sporting gents, who dodged the police and landed in Essex, where they put up Billy Bluck to fight Dick the cabman, whom the Baronet backed, and who had it all his own way for thirteen rounds, when, by an unlucky blow in the windpipe, Billy killed him. "It's always my luck, Strong," Sir Francis said; "the betting was three to one on the cabman, and I thought myself as sure of thirty pounds, as if I had it in my pocket. And dammy, I owe my man Lightfoot fourteen pound now which he's lent and paid for me: and he duns me-the confounded impudent blackguard: and I wish to Heaven I knew any way of getting a bill done, or of screwing a little out of my lady! I'll give you half, Ned, upon my soul and honour, I'll give you half if you can get anybody to do us a little fifty."

But Ned said sternly that he had given his word of honour, as a gentleman, that he would be no party to any future billtransactions in which her husband might engage (who had given his word of honour too), and the Chevalier said that

he, at least, would keep his word, and would black his own boots all his life rather than break his promise. And what is more, he vowed he would advise Lady Clavering that Sir Francis was about to break his faith towards her upon the very first hint which he could get that such was Clavering's intention.

Upon this information Sir Francis Clavering, according to his custom, cried and cursed very volubly. He spoke of death as his only resource. He besought and implored his dear Strong, his best friend, his dear old Ned, not to throw him over: and when he quitted his dearest Ned, as he went down the stairs of Shepherd's Inn, swore and blasphemed at Ned as the most infernal vilÎain, and traitor, and blackguard, and coward under the sun, and wished Ned was in his grave, and in a worse place, only he would like the confounded ruffian to live, until Frank Clavering had had his revenge out of him.

In Strong's chambers the Baronet met a gentleman whose visits were now, as it has been shown, very frequent in Shepherd's Inn, Mr. Samuel Huxter, of Clavering. That young fellow, who had poached the walnuts in Clavering Park in his youth, and had seen the Baronet drive through the street at home with four horses, and prance up to church with powdered footmen, had an immense respect for his member, and a prodigious delight in making his acquaintance. He introduced himself with much blushing and trepidation, as a Clavering manson of Mr. Huxter, of the Market-place -father attended Sir Francis's keeper, Coxwood, when his gun burst and took off three fingers-proud to make Sir Francis's acquaintance. All of which introductions Sir Francis received affably. And honest Huxter talked about Sir Francis to the chaps at Bartholomew's; and told Fanny, in the lodge, that, after all, there was nothing like a thorough-bred un, a regular good old English gentleman, one of the olden time! To which Fanny replied, that she thought Sir Francis was an ojous creature-she didn't know why-but she couldn't bear him-she was sure he was wicked and low and mean-she knew he was; and when Sam to this replied