A History of Pendennis, Volume 1

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  IN WHICH THE PRINTER'S DEVIL COMES TO THE DOOR.

  Pen in the midst of his revels and enjoyments, humble as they were, andmoderate in cost if not in kind, saw an awful sword hanging over himwhich must drop down before long and put an end to his follies andfeasting. His money was very nearly spent. His club subscription hadcarried away a third part of it. He had paid for the chief articles offurniture with which he had supplied his little bed-room: in fine, hewas come to the last five-pound note in his pocket-book, and could thinkof no method of providing a successor; for our friend had been bred uplike a young prince as yet, or as a child in arms whom his mother feedswhen 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 whodined with a great man every day, Pen might have a large bank at hiscommand for any thing that the other knew. He had gold chains and adressing-case fit for a lord. His habits were those of an aristocrat--notthat he was expensive upon any particular point, for he dined andlaughed over the pint of porter and the plate of beef from the cook'sshop with perfect content and good appetite--but he could not adopt thepenny-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 ifit rained, and as surely as he took the cab he overpaid the driver. Hehad a scorn for cleaned gloves and minor economies. Had he been bred toten thousand a year he could scarcely have been more free-handed; andfor a beggar, with a sad story, or a couple of pretty piteous-facedchildren, he never could resist putting his hand into his pocket. It wasa sumptuous nature, perhaps, that could not be brought to regard money;a natural generosity and kindness; and possibly a petty vanity that waspleased with praise, even with the praise of waiters and cabmen. I doubtwhether the wisest of us know what our own motives are, and whether someof the actions of which we are the very proudest will not surprise uswhen we trace them, as we shall one day, to their source.

  Warrington then did not know, and Pen had not thought proper to confideto his friend, his pecuniary history. That Pen had been wild andwickedly extravagant at college, the other was aware; every body atcollege was extravagant and wild; but how great the son's expenses hadbeen, and how small the mother's means, were points which had not beenas yet submitted to Mr. Warrington's examination.

  At last the story came out, while Pen was grimly surveying the changefor the last five-pound note, as it lay upon the tray from thepublic-house by Mr. Warrington's pot of ale.

  "It is the last rose of summer," said Pen; "its blooming companions havegone long ago; and behold the last one of the garland has shed itsleaves;" and he told Warrington the whole story, which we know, of hismother's means, of his own follies, of Laura's generosity; during whichtime Warrington smoked his pipe and listened intent.

  "Impecuniosity will do you good," Pen's friend said, knocking outthe ashes at the end of the narration; "I don't know any thing morewholesome for a man--for an honest man, mind you--for another, themedicine loses its effect--than a state of tick. It is an alterativeand 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 stickbefore him, is forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, andbraces himself to repulse or overcome it; a little necessity brings outyour pluck if you have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. Youwill discover what a number of things you can do without when you haveno 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 amolly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single man who has healthand brains, and can't find a livelihood in the world, doesn't deserveto stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny and jump over WaterlooBridge. Let him steal a leg of mutton and be transported and get out ofthe country--he is not fit to live in it. Dixi; I have spoken. Give usanother pull at the pale ale."

  "You have certainly spoken; but how is one to live?" said Pen. "There isbeef and bread in plenty in England, but you must pay for it with workor money. And who will take my work? and what work can I do?"

  Warrington burst out laughing, "Suppose we advertise in the Times," hesaid, "for an usher's place at a classical and commercial academy--Agentleman, B.A. of St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, and who wasplucked for his degree--"

  "Confound you," cried Pen.

  "--Wishes to give lessons in classics and mathematics, and the rudimentsof 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 friendBloundell-Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels thecontinent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleecesthem. There is Bob O'Toole, with whom I was at school, who drives theBallynafad mail now, and carries honest Jack Finucane's own correspondenceto that city. I know a man, sir, a doctor's son, like--well, don't beangry, I meant nothing offensive--a doctor's son, I say, who was walkingthe hospitals here, and quarreled with his governor on questions offinance, and what did he do when he came to his last five-pound note?he let his mustaches grow, went into a provincial town, where heannounced himself as Professor Spineto, chiropodist to the Emperor ofall the Russias, and by a happy operation on the editor of the countrynewspaper, established himself in practice, and lived reputably forthree years. He has been reconciled to his family, and has now succeededto his father's gallypots."

  "Hang gallypots," cried Pen. "I can't drive a coach, cut corns, or cheatat cards. There's nothing else you propose?"

  "Yes; there's our own correspondent," Warrington said. "Every manhas his secrets, look you. Before you told me the story of yourmoney-matters, I had no idea but that you were a gentleman of fortune,for, with your confounded airs and appearance, any body would supposeyou to be so. From what you tell me about your mother's income, it isclear that you must not lay any more hands on it. You can't go onspunging upon the women. You must pay off that trump of a girl. Laura isher name?--here is your health, Laura!--and carry a hod rather than askfor a shilling from home."

  "But how earn one?" asked Pen.

  "How do I live, think you?" said the other. "On my younger brother'sallowance, Pendennis? I have secrets of my own, my boy;" and hereWarrington's countenance fell. "I made away with that allowance fiveyears ago: if I had made away with myself a little time before, it wouldhave been better. I have played off my own bat, ever since. I don't wantmuch money. When my purse is out, I go to work and fill it, and then lieidle 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 leanpurse, 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," headded, 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 GeorgeWarrington writes for bread. But I write in the Law Reviews: look here,these articles are mine." And he turned over some sheets. "I write ina newspaper, now and then, of which a friend of mine is editor." AndWarrington, going with Pendennis to the club one day, called for afile of the "Dawn," and pointed with his finger silently to one ortwo articles, which Pen read with delight. He had no difficulty inrecognizing the style afterward--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 hisfriend's powers. "I know very little about politics or history,Warrington; and have but a smattering of letters. I can't fly upon sucha 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 andverses 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 thesacred flame--a little of the real poetical fire, sir, I think; andall our oil-lamps are nothing, compared to that, though ever so welltrimmed. You are a poet, Pen, my boy," and so speaking, Warringtonstretched out his broad hand, and clapped Pen on the shoulder.

  Arthur was so delighted that the tears came into his eyes. "How kind youare to me, Warrington!" he said.

  "I like you, old boy," said the other. "I was dev'lish lonely inchambers, and wanted somebody, and the sight of your honest face somehowpleased me. I liked the way you laughed at Lowton--that poor good littlesnob. And, in fine, the reason why I can not tell--but so it is, young'un. I'm alone in the world, sir; and I wanted some one to keep mecompany;" and a glance of extreme kindness and melancholy passed out ofWarrington's dark eyes.

  Pen was too much pleased with his own thoughts to perceive the sadnessof the friend who was complimenting him. "Thank you, Warrington," hesaid, "thank you for your friendship to me, and--and what you say aboutme. I _have_ often thought I was a poet. I will be one--I think I amone, as you say so, though the world mayn't. Is it--is it the Ariadnein Naxos which you liked (I was only eighteen when I wrote it), or thePrize Poem?"

  Warrington burst into a roar of laughter. "Why, you young goose," heyelled out--"of all the miserable weak rubbish I ever tried, Ariadne inNaxos is the most mawkish and disgusting. The Prize Poem is so pompousand 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 tocut out Milton and AEschylus? Are you setting up to be a Pindar, youabsurd little tom-tit, and fancy you have the strength and pinion whichthe Theban eagle bear, sailing with supreme dominion through the azurefields of air? No, my boy, I think you can write a magazine article, andturn out 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 youthat I am a better man than you think for."

  Warrington only laughed the more, and blew twenty-four puffs rapidly outof his pipe by way of reply to Pen.

  * * * * *

  An opportunity for showing his skill presented itself before verylong. 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 andgravity, used to present to the world every year a beautiful gilt volumecalled the Spring Annual, edited by the Lady Violet Lebas, and numberingamong its contributors not only the most eminent, but the mostfashionable poets of our time. Young Lord Dodo's poems first appeared inthis miscellany--the Honorable Percy Popjoy, whose chivalrous balladshave obtained him such a reputation--Bedwin Sands's Eastern Ghazuls,and many more of the works of our young nobles, were first given to theworld in the Spring Annual, which has since shared the fate of othervernal blossoms, and perished out of the world. The book was daintilyillustrated with pictures of reigning beauties, or other prints of atender and voluptuous character; and, as these plates were prepared longbeforehand, requiring much time in engraving, it was the eminent poetswho had to write to the plates, and not the painters who illustratedthe poems.

  One day, just when this volume was on the eve of publication, it chancedthat Mr. Warrington called in Paternoster Row to talk with Mr. Hack, Mr.Bacon's reader and general manager of publications--for Mr. Bacon, nothaving the least taste in poetry or in literature of any kind, wiselyemployed the services of a professional gentleman. Warrington, then,going into Mr. Hack's room on business of his own, found that gentlemanwith a bundle of proof plates and sheets of the Spring Annual beforehim, 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 tochurch with a large prayer-book; a youth in a cloak was hidden in aniche watching this young woman. The picture was pretty; but the greatgenius of Percy Popjoy had deserted him, for he had made the mostexecrable verses which ever were perpetrated by a young nobleman.

  Warrington burst out laughing as he read the poem: and Mr. Hack laughedtoo, but with rather a rueful face.--"It won't do," he said, "the publicwon'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 tobe sure--but the verses are too bad. Lady Violet herself owns it; she'sbusy with her own poem; what's to be done? We can't lose the plate. Thegovernor 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 themorning for the verses. You'll pay well of course."

  "Of course," said Mr. Hack; and Warrington, having dispatched his ownbusiness, went home to Mr. Pen, plate in hand.

  "Now, boy, here's a chance for you. Turn me off a copy of verses tothis."

  "What's this? A Church Porch--a lady entering it, and a youth out of awine-shop window ogling her.--What the deuce am I to do with it?"

  "Try," said Warrington. "Earn your livelihood for once, you who long soto do it."

  "Well, I will try," said Pen.

  "And I'll go out to dinner," said Warrington, and left Mr. Pen in abrown study.

  When Warrington came home that night, at a very late hour, the verseswere 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 asfollows:--

  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 makethem 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 decentpenny."

  Pen examined his portfolio and found another ballad which he thoughtmight figure with advantage in the Spring Annual, and consigning thesetwo 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 bookspublished by the firm displayed in the windows, under a bust of my Lordof 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 wasnewly painted and elaborately decorated in the style of the seventeenthcentury, so that you might have fancied stately Mr. Evelyn passing overthe 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 embassador should act for him entirely; and theyoung fellow paced up and down the street in a very nervous condition,until he should learn the result of the negotiation. Many a poor devilbefore him has trodden those flags, with similar cares and anxieties athis heels, his bread and his fame dependent upon the sentence of hismagnanimous patrons of the Row. Pen looked at all the wonders of allthe shops; and the strange variety of literature which they exhibit.In this were displayed black-letter volumes and books in the clearpale types of Aldus and Elzevir: in the next, you might see the PennyHorrific Register; the Halfpenny Annals of Crime and History of the mostcelebrated Murderers of all Countries, The Raff's Magazine, The LarkySwell, and other publications of the penny press; while at the nextwind
ow, portraits of ill-favored individuals, with facsimiles of thevenerated signatures of the Reverend Grimes Wapshot, the Reverend EliasHowle, and the works written, and the sermons preached by them, showedthe British Dissenter where he could find mental pabulum. Hard by wouldbe a little casement hung with emblems, with medals and rosaries,with little paltry prints of saints, gilt and painted, and books ofcontroversial theology, by which the faithful of the Roman opinion mightlearn a short way to deal with Protestants, at a penny apiece, orninepence the dozen for distribution; while in the very next window youmight see "Come out of Rome," a sermon preached at the opening of theShepherd's Bush College, by John Thomas Lord Bishop of Ealing. Scarcean opinion but has its expositor and its place of exhibition in thispeaceful 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 isgoing to have an interview with the dentist, examines the books on thewaiting-room table. He remembered them afterward. It seemed to him thatWarrington would never come out; and indeed the latter was engaged forsome time in pleading his friend's cause.

  Pen's natural conceit would have swollen immensely if he could buthave heard the report which Warrington gave of him. It happened thatMr. Bacon himself had occasion to descend to Mr. Hack's room whileWarrington was talking there, and Warrington knowing Bacon's weaknesses,acted upon them with great adroitness in his friend's behalf. In thefirst place, he put on his hat to speak to Bacon, and addressed himfrom the table on which he seated himself. Bacon liked to be treatedwith 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 knowhim. A man of property in the West, of one of the most ancient familiesin England, related to half the nobility in the empire--he's cousin toLord 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 uplast night, at my request, to write; and Hack talks about giving him acopy 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 these verses. You don'tsuppose that such a man as Mr. Arthur Pendennis gives up a dinner atGaunt House for nothing? You know, as well as any body, that the men offashion 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 onlysold 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 ofballads, which Mr. Warrington offered for the Spring Annual, Mr. Baconsaid, "Law bless you, give him a check directly;" and with this paperWarrington went out to his friend, and placed it, grinning, in Pen'shands. Pen was as elated as if somebody had left him a fortune. Heoffered Warrington a dinner at Richmond instantly. "What should he goand buy for Laura and his mother? He must buy something for them."

  "They'll like the book better than any thing 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 theold mother. I can pay off Laura now. I can get my own living. I can makemy own way."

  "I can marry the grand vizier's daughter; I can purchase a house inBelgrave Square; I can build a fine castle in the air!" said Warrington,pleased with the other's exultation. "Well, you may get bread andcheese, Pen: and I own it tastes well, the bread which you earnyourself."

  They had a magnum of claret at dinner at the club that day, at Pen'scharges. It was long since he had indulged in such a luxury, butWarrington would not balk him; and they drank together to the healthof the Spring Annual.

  It never rains but it pours, according to the proverb; so very speedilyanother chance occurred, by which Mr. Pen was to be helped in his schemeof making a livelihood. Warrington one day threw him a letter acrossthe table, which was brought by a printer's boy, "from Captain Shandon,sir"--the little emissary said: and then went and fell asleep on hisaccustomed 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 theother, and they were for some time the closest friends and partners.Hack says it was Mrs. Bungay who caused all the mischief between thetwo; whereas Shandon, who reads for Bungay a good deal, says Mrs. Bacondid 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 twopublishers; and no sooner does one bring out a book of travels, orpoems, a magazine or periodical, quarterly, or monthly, or weekly, orannual, but the rival is in the field with something similar. I haveheard poor Shandon tell with great glee how he made Bungay give a granddinner at Blackwall to all his writers, by saying that Bacon had invitedhis corps to an entertainment at Greenwich. When Bungay engaged yourcelebrated friend Mr. Wagg to edit the 'Londoner,' Bacon straightwayrushed off and secured Mr. Grindle to give his name to the 'WestminsterMagazine.' When Bacon brought out his comic Irish novel of 'BarneyBrallaghan,' off went Bungay to Dublin, and produced his rollickingHibernian story of 'Looney MacTwolter.' When Doctor Hicks brought outhis 'Wanderings in Mesopotamia,' under Bacon's auspices, Bungay producedProfessor Sandiman's 'Researches in Zahara;' and Bungay is publishinghis '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 init, Pen, my boy. We will go and see Shandon. We are sure to find him athome."

  "Where does he live?" asked Pen.

  "In the Fleet Prison," Warrington said. "And very much at home he isthere, too. He is the king of the place."

  Pen had never seen this scene of London life, and walked with no smallinterest in at the grim gate of that dismal edifice. They went throughthe ante-room, where the officers and janitors of the place were seated,and passing in at the wicket, entered the prison. The noise and thecrowd, the life and the shouting, the shabby bustle of the place, struckand excited Pen. People moved about ceaselessly and restless, like cagedanimals in a menagerie. Men were playing at fives. Others pacing andtramping: this one in colloquy with his lawyer in dingy black--that onewalking sadly, with his wife by his side, and a child on his arm. Somewere arrayed in tattered dressing-gowns, and had a look of rakishfashion. Every body seemed to be busy, humming, and on the move. Penfelt as if he choked in the place, and as if the door being locked uponhim they never would let him out.

  They went through a court up a stone staircase, and through passagesfull of people, and noise, and cross lights, and black doors clappingand banging; Pen feeling as one does in a feverish morning-dream. Atlast the same little runner who had brought
Shandon's note, and hadfollowed them down Fleet-street munching apples, and who showed the wayto the two gentlemen through the prison, said, "This is the captain'sdoor," and Mr. Shandon's voice from within bade them enter.

  The room, though bare, was not uncheerful. The sun was shining in at thewindow--near which sate a lady at work, who had been gay and beautifulonce, but in whose faded face kindness and tenderness still beamed.Through all his errors and reckless mishaps and misfortunes, thisfaithful creature adored her husband, and thought him the best andcleverest, as indeed he was one of the kindest of men. Nothing everseemed to disturb the sweetness of his temper; not debts: not duns:not misery: not the bottle: not his wife's unhappy position, or hischildren'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 couldrefuse 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 hehad a score of such retainers. He would sign his name at the back of anyman's bill, and never pay any debt of his own. He would write on anyside, and attack himself or another man with equal indifference. Hewas one of the wittiest, the most amiable, and the most incorrigibleof 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 Irishmilitia regiment once, and the title remained with him) was sitting onhis bed in a torn dressing-gown, with a desk on his knees, at which hewas scribbling as fast as his rapid pen could write. Slip after slip ofpaper fell off the desk wet on to the ground. A picture of his childrenwas hung up over his bed, and the youngest of them was pattering aboutthe room.

  Opposite the captain sate Mr. Bungay, a portly man of stolidcountenance, 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 couldhardly speak plain.

  "Mary!" said mamma, from her work.

  "Oh, never mind," Bungay roared out with a great laugh; "no harm insaying 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 wasemployed. (The poor lady had hung curtains up in the room, had broughtthe children's picture and placed it there, and had made one or twoattempts to ornament it.) Mamma began to cry; Mr. Bungay turned red, andlooked fiercely out of his blood-shot 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, ifyou can find places," and away went the pen again.

  Warrington pulled forward an old portmanteau--the only availableseat--and sate down on it with a bow to Mrs. Shandon, and a nod toBungay: the child came and looked at Pen solemnly: and in a couple ofminutes the swift scribbling ceased; and Shandon, turning the desk overon the bed, stooped and picked up the papers.

  "I think this will do," said he. "It's the prospectus for the 'Pall-MallGazette.'"

  "And here's the money for it," Mr. Bungay said, laying down a five-poundnote. "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 heeagerly clapped the note into his pocket.