"You wouldn't be so cruel to that poor boy, would you, Pendennis?" asked the father, pleading piteously; "hang it, think about him. He's a nice boy: though he's dev'lish wild, I own—he's dev'lish wild."
"It's you who are cruel to him," said the old moralist. "Why, sir, you'll ruin him yourself inevitably in three years."
"Yes, but perhaps I won't have such dev'lish bad luck, you know; the luck must turn: and I'll reform, by Gad, I'll reform. And if you were to split on me, it would cut up my wife so; you know it would, most infernally."
"To be parted from you," said the old major, with a sneer; "you know she won't live with you again."
"But why can't Lady C. live abroad, or at Bath, or at Tunbridge, or at the doose, and I go on here?" Clavering continued. "I like being here better than abroad, and I like being in Parliament. It's dev'lish convenient being in Parliament. There's very few seats like mine left; and if I gave it to 'em, I should not wonder the ministry would give me an island to govern, or some dev'lish good thing; for you know I'm a gentleman of dev'lish good family, and have a handle to my name, and—and that sort of thing, Major Pendennis. Eh, don't you see? Don't you think they'd give me something dev'lish good if I was to play my cards well? And then, you know, I'd save money, and be kept out of the way of the confounded hells and rouge et noir—and—and so I'd rather not give up Parliament, please." For at one instant to hate and defy a man, at the next to weep before him, and at the next to be perfectly confidential and friendly with him, was not an unusual process with our versatile-minded baronet.
"As for your seat in Parliament," the major said, with something of a blush on his cheek, and a certain tremor, which the other did not see "you must part with that, Sir Francis Clavering, to—to me."
"What! are you going into the House, Major Pendennis?"
"No—not I; but my nephew, Arthur, is a very clever fellow, and would make a figure there: and when Clavering had two members, his father might very likely have been one; and—and I should like Arthur to be there," the major said.
"Dammy, does he know it, too?" cried out Clavering.
"Nobody knows any thing out of this room," Pendennis answered; "and if you do this favor for me, I hold my tongue. If not, I'm a man of my word, and will do what I have said."