“Yes, my dear boy,” said the old bachelor, as they sauntered through the Green Park, where many poor children were disporting happily, and errand-boys were playing at toss-halfpenny, and black sheep were grazing in the sunshine, and an actor was learning his part on a bench, and nursery-maids and their charges sauntered here and there, and several couples were walking in a leisurely manner; “yes, depend on it, my boy; for a poor man, there is nothing like having good acquaintances. Who were those men, with whom you saw me in the bow-window at Bays’s? Two were Peers of the realm. Hobananob will be a Peer, as soon as his grand-uncle dies, and he has had his third seizure; and of the other four, not one has less than his seven thousand a year. Did you see that dark blue brougham, with that tremendous stepping horse, waiting at the door of the club? You’ll know it again. It is Sir Hugh Trumpington’s; he was never known to walk in his life; never appears in the streets on foot—never: and if he is going two doors off, to see his mother, the old dowager (to whom I shall certainly introduce you, for she receives some of the best company in London), gad, sir—he mounts his horse at No. 23, and dismounts again at No. 25 A. He is now upstairs, at Bays’s, playing picquet with Count Punter: he is the second-best player in England—as well he may be; for he plays every day of his life, except Sundays (for Sir Hugh is an uncommonly religious man) from half-past three till half-past seven, when he dresses for dinner.
“A very pious manner of spending his time,” Pen said, laughing and thinking that his uncle was falling into the twaddling state.
“Gad, sir, that is not the question. A man of his estate may employ his time as he chooses. When you are a baronet, a county member, with ten thousand acres of the best land in Cheshire, and such a place as Trumpington (though he never goes there), you may do as you like.”
“And so that was his brougham, sir, was it?” the nephew said with almost a sneer.
“His brougham—O ay, yes!—and that brings me back to my point—revenons a nos moutons. Yes, begad! revenons a nous moutons. Well, that brougham is mine if I choose, between four and seven. Just as much mine as if I jobbed it from Tilbury’s, begad, for thirty pound a month. Sir Hugh is the best natured fellow in the world; and if it hadn’t been so fine an afternoon as it is, you and I would have been in that brougham at this very minute on our way to Grosvenor Place. That is the benefit of knowing rich men;—I dine for nothing, sir;—I go into the country, and I’m mounted for nothing. Other fellows keep hounds and gamekeepers for me. Sic vos, non vobis, as we used to say at Grey Friars, hey? I’m of the opinion of my old friend Leech, of the Forty-fourth; and a devilish good shrewd fellow he was, as most Scotchmen are. Gad, sir, Leech used to say, ‘He was so poor that he couldn’t afford to know a poor man.’”
“You don’t act up to your principles, uncle,” Pen said good-naturedly.
“Up to my principles; how, sir?” the Major asked, rather testily.
“You would have cut me in Saint James’s Street, sir,” Pen said, “were your practice not more benevolent than your theory; you who live with dukes and magnates of the land, and would take no notice of a poor devil like me.” By which speech we may see that Mr. Pen was getting on in the world, and could flatter as well as laugh in his sleeve.
Major Pendennis was appeased instantly, and very much pleased. He tapped affectionately his nephew’s arm on which he was leaning, and said,—“you, sir, you are my flesh and blood! Hang it, sir, I’ve been very proud of you and very fond of you, but for your confounded follies and extravagances—and wild oats, sir, which I hope you’ve sown ’em. I hope you’ve sown ’em; begad! My object, Arthur, is to make a man of you—to see you well placed in the world, as becomes one of your name and my own, sir. You have got yourself a little reputation by your literary talents, which I am very far from undervaluing, though in my time, begad, poetry and genius and that sort of thing were devilish disreputable. There was poor Byron, for instance, who ruined himself, and contracted the worst habits by living with poets and newspaper-writers, and people of that kind: But the times are changed now—there’s a run upon literature—clever fellows get into the best houses in town, begad! Tempora mutantur, sir; and by Jove, I suppose whatever is is right, as Shakspeare says.”
Pen did not think fit to tell his uncle who was the author who had made use of that remarkable phrase, and here descending from the Green Park, the pair made their way into Grosvenor Place, and to the door of the mansion occupied there by Sir Francis and Lady Clavering.