“Go on,” said Pen, growling.
“Men take to all sorts of professions. Why, there is your friend Bloundell-Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the Continent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces them. There is Bob O’Toole, with whom I was at school, who drives the Ballynafad mail now, and carries honest Jack Finucane’s own correspondence to that city. I know a man, sir, a doctor’s son, like—well, don’t be angry, I meant nothing offensive—a doctor’s son, I say, who was walking the hospitals here, and quarrelled with his governor on questions of finance, and what did he do when he came to his last five-pound note? he let his mustachios grow, went into a provincial town, where he announced himself as Professor Spineto, chiropodist to the Emperor of All the Russians, and by a happy operation on the editor of the country newspaper, established himself in practice, and lived reputably for three years. He has been reconciled to his family, and has succeeded to his father’s gallypots.”
“Hang gallypots,” cried Pen. “I can’t drive a coach, cut corns, or cheat at cards. There’s nothing else you propose.”
“Yes; there’s our own correspondent,” Warrington said. “Every man has his secrets, look you. Before you told me the story of your money-matters, I had no idea but that you were a gentleman of fortune, for, with your confounded airs and appearance, anybody would suppose you to be so. From what you tell me about your mother’s income, it is clear that you must not lay any more hands on it. You can’t go on spunging upon the women. You must pay off that trump of a girl. Laura is her name?—here is your health, Laura!—and carry a hod rather than ask for a shilling from home.”
“But how earn one?” asked Pen.
“How do I live, think you?” said the other. “On my younger brother’s allowance, Pendennis? I have secrets of my own, my boy;” and here Warrington’s countenance fell. “I made away with that allowance five years ago: if I had made away with myself a little time before, it would have been better. I have played off my own bat, ever since. I don’t want much money. When my purse is out, I go to work and fill it, and then lie idle 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 lean purse, 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,” he added, 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 George Warrington writes for bread. But I write in the Law Reviews: look here, these articles are mine.” And he turned over some sheets. “I write in a newspaper now and then, of which a friend of mine is editor.” And Warrington, going with Pendennis to the club one day, called for a file of the Dawn, and pointed with his finger silently to one or two articles, which Pen read with delight. He had no difficulty in recognising the style afterwards—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 his friend’s powers. “I know very little about politics or history, Warrington; and have but a smattering of letters. I can’t fly upon such a 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 and verses 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 the sacred flame—a little of the real poetical fire, sir, I think; and all our oil-lamps are nothing compared to that, though ever so well trimmed. You are a poet, Pen, my boy,” and so speaking, Warrington stretched out his broad hand, and clapped Pen on the shoulder.