"I was, sir, I was," replied the senior; "and the old war-horse, you know, never hears the sound of a trumpet, but he begins to he, he!—you understand;" and he gave a killing though somewhat superannuated leer and bow to a carriage that passed them, and entered the Park.
"Lady Catherine Martingale's carriage," he said; "mons'ous fine girls the daughters, though, gad, I remember their mother a thousand times handsomer. No, Arthur, my dear fellow, with your person and expectations, you ought to make a good coup in marriage some day or other; and though I wouldn't have this repeated at Fairoaks, you rogue, ha! ha! a reputation for a little wickedness, and for being an homme dangereux, don't hurt a young fellow with the women. They like it, sir—they hate a milksop ... young men must be young men, you know. But for marriage," continued the veteran moralist, "that is a very different matter. Marry a woman with money. I've told you before, it is as easy to get a rich wife as a poor one; and a doosed deal more comfortable to sit down to a well-cooked dinner, with your little entrées nicely served, than to have nothing but a damned cold leg of mutton between you and your wife. We shall have a good dinner on the 14th, when we dine with Sir Francis Clavering: stick to that, my boy, in your relations with the family. Cultivate 'em, but keep 'em for dining. No more of your youthful follies and nonsense about love in a cottage."
"It must be a cottage with a double coach-house, a cottage of gentility, sir," said Pen, quoting the hackneyed ballad of the Devil's Walk: but his uncle did not know that poem (though, perhaps, he might be leading Pen upon the very promenade in question), and went on with his philosophical remarks, very much pleased with the aptness of the pupil to whom he addressed them. Indeed Arthur Pendennis was a clever fellow, who took his color very readily from his neighbor, and found the adaptation only too easy.
Warrington, the grumbler, growled out that Pen was becoming such a puppy, that soon there would be no bearing him. But the truth is, the young man's success and dashing manners pleased his elder companion. He liked to see Pen gay and spirited, and brimful of health, and life, and hope; as a man who has long since left off being amused with clown and harlequin, still gets a pleasure in watching a child at a pantomime. Mr. Pen's former sulkiness disappeared with his better fortune: and he bloomed as the sun began to shine upon him.