“My good sir, I tell you the boy is the son of a country apothecary,” cried out Major Pendennis; “and that when he comes of age he won’t have a shilling.”
“Pooh, Major, you’re laughing at me,” said Mr. Costigan, “me young friend, I make no doubt, is heir to two thousand pounds a year.”
“Two thousand fiddlesticks! I beg your pardon, my dear sir; but has the boy been humbugging you?—it is not his habit. Upon my word and honour, as a gentleman and an executor to my brother’s will too, he left little more than five hundred a year behind him.”
“And with aconomy, a handsome sum of money too, sir,” the Captain answered. “Faith, I’ve known a man drink his clar’t, and drive his coach-and-four on five hundred a year and strict aconomy, in Ireland, sir. We’ll manage on it, sir—trust Jack Costigan for that.”
“My dear Captain Costigan—I give you my word that my brother did not leave a shilling to his son Arthur.”
“Are ye joking with me, Meejor Pendennis?” cried Jack Costigan. “Are ye thrifling with the feelings of a father and a gentleman?”
“I am telling you the honest truth,” said Major Pendennis. “Every shilling my brother had, he left to his widow: with a partial reversion, it is true, to the boy. But she is a young woman, and may marry if he offends her—or she may outlive him, for she comes of an uncommonly long-lived family. And I ask you, as a gentleman and a man of the world, what allowance can my sister, Mrs. Pendennis, make to her son out of five hundred a year, which is all her fortune,—that shall enable him to maintain himself and your daughter in the rank befitting such an accomplished young lady?”
“Am I to understand, sir, that the young gentleman, your nephew, and whom I have fosthered and cherished as the son of me bosom, is an imposther who has been thrifling with the affections of me beloved child?” exclaimed the General, with an outbreak of wrath.—“Have you yourself been working upon the feelings of the young man’s susceptible nature to injuice him to break off an engagement, and with it me adored Emily’s heart? Have a care, sir, how you thrifle with the honour of John Costigan. If I thought any mortal man meant to do so, be heavens I’d have his blood, sir—were he old or young.”
“Mr. Costigan!” cried out the Major.
“Mr. Costigan can protect his own and his daughter’s honour, and will, sir,” said the other. “Look at that chest of dthrawers, it contains heaps of letthers that that viper has addressed to that innocent child. There’s promises there, sir, enough to fill a bandbox with; and when I have dragged the scoundthrel before the Courts of Law, and shown up his perjury and his dishonour, I have another remedy in yondther mahogany case, sir, which shall set me right, sir, with any individual—ye mark me words, Major Pendennis—with any individual who has counselled your nephew to insult a soldier and a gentleman. What? Me daughter to be jilted, and me grey hairs dishonoured by an apothecary’s son. By the laws of Heaven, Sir, I should like to see the man that shall do it.”