A gentleman with whom we are already slightly acquainted, Mr. Jack Finucane, a townsman of Captain Shandon's, found the captain's wife and little Mary (for whom Jack always brought a sweetmeat in his pocket) over this meal. Jack thought Shandon the greatest of created geniuses; had had one or two helps from the good-natured prodigal, who had always a kind word, and sometimes a guinea for any friend in need; and never missed a day in seeing his patron. He was ready to run Shandon's errands and transact his money-business with publishers and newspaper editors, duns, creditors, holders of Shandon's acceptances, gentlemen disposed to speculate in those securities, and to transact the thousand little affairs of an embarrassed Irish gentleman. I never knew an embarrassed Irish gentleman yet, but he had an aid-de-camp of his own nation, likewise in circumstances of pecuniary discomfort. That aid-de-camp has subordinates of his own, who again may have other insolvent dependents—all through his life our captain marched at the head of a ragged staff, who shared in the rough fortunes of their chieftain.
"He won't have that five-pound note very long, I bet a guinea," Mr. Bungay said of the captain, as he and his two companions walked away from the prison; and the publisher judged rightly, for when Mrs. Shandon came to empty her husband's pockets, she found but a couple of shillings, and a few half-pence out of the morning's remittance. Shandon had given a pound to one follower; had sent a leg of mutton and potatoes and beer to an acquaintance in the poor side of the prison; had paid an outstanding bill at the tavern where he had changed his five-pound note; had had a dinner with two friends there, to whom he lost sundry half-crowns at cards afterward; so that the night left him as poor as the morning had found him.
The publisher and the two gentlemen had had some talk together after quitting Shandon, and Warrington reiterated to Bungay what he had said to his rival, Bacon, viz., that Pen was a high fellow, of great genius, and what was more, well with the great world, and related to "no end" of the peerage. Bungay replied that he should be happy to have dealings with Mr. Pendennis, and hoped to have the pleasure of seeing both gents to cut mutton with him before long; and so, with mutual politeness and protestations, they parted.
"It is hard to see such a man as Shandon," Pen said, musing, and talking that night over the sight which he had witnessed, "of accomplishments so multifarious, and of such an undoubted talent and humor, an inmate of a jail for half his time, and a bookseller's hanger-on when out of prison."
"I am a bookseller's hanger-on—you are going to try your paces as a hack," Warrington said, with a laugh. "We are all hacks upon some road or other. I would rather be myself, than Paley, our neighbor in chambers: who has as much enjoyment of his life as a mole. A deuced deal of undeserved compassion has been thrown away upon what you call your bookseller's drudge."
"Much solitary pipes and ale make a cynic of you," Pen said. "You are a Diogenes by a beer-barrel, Warrington. No man shall tell me that a man of genius, as Shandon is, ought to be driven by such a vulgar slave driver, as yonder Mr. Bungay, whom we have just left, who fattens on the profits of the other's brains, and enriches himself out of his journeyman's labor. It makes me indignant to see a gentleman the serf of such a creature as that, of a man who can't speak the language that he lives by, who is not fit to black Shandon's boots."
"So you have begun already to gird at the publishers, and to take your side among our order. Bravo, Pen, my boy!" Warrington answered, laughing still. "What have you got to say against Bungay's relations with Shandon? Was it the publisher, think you, who sent the author to prison? Is it Bungay who is tippling away the five-pound note which we saw just now, or Shandon?"
"Misfortune drives a man into bad company," Pen said. "It is easy to cry 'Fie!' against a poor fellow who has no society but such as he finds in a prison; and no resource except forgetfulness and the bottle. We must deal kindly with the eccentricities of genius, and remember that the very ardor and enthusiasm of temperament which makes the author delightful often leads the man astray."
"A fiddlestick about men of genius!" Warrington cried out, who was a very severe moralist upon some points, though possibly a very bad practitioner. "I deny that there are so many geniuses as people who whimper about the fate of men of letters assert there are. There are thousands of clever fellows in the world who could, if they would, turn verses, write articles, read books, and deliver a judgment upon them; the talk of professional critics and writers is not a whit more brilliant, or profound, or amusing, than that of any other society of educated people. If a lawyer, or a soldier, or a parson, outruns his income, and does not pay his bills, he must go to jail; and an author must go, too. If an author fuddles himself, I don't know why he should be let off a headache the next morning—if he orders a coat from the tailor's, why he shouldn't pay for it."