ringing the bell, he bade Betsy bring him another glass of rum-andwater, and one for Mr. Desborough, to be charged to him.

We adjourned to another parlour then, where gas was lighted up; and F. B., over a pint of beer, narrated poor Honeyman's mishap. "Saving your presence, Clive," said Bayham, "and with every regard for the youthful bloom of your young heart's affections, your uncle, Charles Honeyman, sir, is a bad lot. I have known him these twenty years, when I was at his father's as a private pupil. Old Miss Honeyman is one of those cards which we call trumps-so was old Honeyman a trump; but Charles and his sister

I stamped on F. B.'s foot under the table. He seemed to have forgotten that he was about to speak of Clive's mother.

"Hem! of your poor mother, I-hem-I may say vidi tantum. I scarcely knew her. She married very young; as I was when she left Borhambury. But Charles exhibited his character at a very early age -and it was not a charming one-no, by no means a model of virtue. He always had a genius for running into debt. He borrowed from every one of the pupils-I don't know how he spent it except in hardbake and elecampane-and even from old Nosey's groom,pardon me, we used to call your grandfather by that playful epithet, (boys will be boys, you know,)--even from the doctor's groom he took money, and I recollect thrashing Charles Honeyman for that disgraceful action.

"At college, without any particular show, he was always in debt and difficulties. Take warning by him, dear youth! By him and by me, if you like. See me-me, F. Bayham, descended from the ancient kings that long the Tuscan sceptre swayed, dodge down a street to get out of sight of a boot-shop, and my colossal frame tremble if a chap puts his hand on my shoulder, as you did, Pendennis, the other day in the Strand, when I thought a straw might have knocked me down! I have had my errors, Clive. I know 'em. I'll take another pint of beer, if you please. Betsy, has Mrs. Nokes any cold meat in the bar? and an accustomed pickle? Ha! Give her my compliments, and say F. B. is hungry. I resume my tale. Faults F. B. has, and knows it. Humbug he may have been sometimes; but I'm not such a complete humbug as Honeyman."

Clive did not know how to look at this character of his relative; but Clive's companion burst into a fit of laughter, at which F. B. nodded gravely, and resumed his narrative. "I don't know how much money he has had from your governor, but this I can say, the half of it would make F. B. a happy man. I don't know out of how much the reverend party has nobbled his poor old sister at Brighton. He has mortgaged his chapel to Sherrick, I suppose you know, who is master of it, and could turn him out any day. I don't think Sherrick is a bad fellow. I think he's a good fellow; I have known

him do many a good turn to a chap in misfortune. He wants to get into society; what more natural? That was why you were asked to meet him the other day, and why he asked you to dinner. I hope you had a good one. I wish he'd ask me.

"Then Moss has got Honeyman's bills, and Moss's brother-in-law in Cursitor Street has taken possession of his revered person. He's very welcome. One Jew has the chapel, another Hebrew has the clergyman. It's singular, ain't it? Sherrick might turn Lady Whittlesea into a synagogue and have the Chief Rabbi into the pulpit, where my uncle the Bishop has given out the text.

"The shares of that concern ain't at a premium. I have had immense fun with Sherrick about it. I like the Hebrew, sir. He maddens with rage when F. B. goes and asks him whether any more pews are let overhead. Honeyman begged and borrowed in order to buy out the last man. I remember when the speculation was famous, when all the boxes (I mean the pews) were taken for the season, and you couldn't get a place, come ever so early. Then Honeyman was spoilt, and gave his sermons over and over again. People got sick of seeing the old humbug cry, the old crocodile! Then we tried the musical dodge. F. B, came forward, sir, there. That was a coup: I did it, sir. Bellew wouldn't have sung for any man but me--and for two-and-twenty months I kept him as sober as Father Mathew. Then Honeyman didn't pay him; there was a row in the sacred building, and Bellew retired. Then Sherrick must meddle in it. And, having heard a chap out Hampstead way who Sherrick thought would do, Honeyman was forced to engage him, regardless of expense. You recollect the fellow, sir? The Reverend Simeon Rawkins, the lowest of the Low Church, sir—a red-haired dumpy man, who gasped at his h's and spoke with a Lancashire twang-he'd no more do for May Fair than Grimaldi for Macbeth. He and Honeyman used to fight like cat and dog in the vestry; and he drove away a third part of the congregation. He was an honest man and an able man too, though not a sound churchman (F. B. said this with a very edifying gravity); I told Sherrick this the very day I heard him. And if he had spoken to me on the subject I might have saved him a pretty penny-a precious deal more than the paltry sum which he and I had a quarrel about at that time-a matter of business, sir—a pecuniary difference about a small three-months' thing which caused a temporary estrangement between us. As for Honeyman, he used to cry about it. Your uncle is great in the lachrymatory line, Clive Newcome. He used to go with tears in his eyes to Sherrick, and implore him not to have Rawkins, but he would. And I must say for poor Charles that the failure of Lady Whittlesea's has not been altogether Charles's fault; and that Sherrick has kicked down that property.

“Well, then, sir, poor Charles thought to make it all right by marrying Mrs. Brumby!-and she was very fond of him and the thing was all but done, in spite of her sons, who were in a rage, as you may fancy. But Charley, sir, has such a propensity for humbug that he will tell lies when there is no earthly good in lying. He represented his chapel at twelve hundred a year, his private means as so and so; and when he came to book up with Briggs the lawyer, Mrs. Brumby's brother, it was found that he lied and prevaricated so that the widow, in actual disgust, would have nothing more to do with him. She was a good woman of business, and managed the hat-shop for nine years whilst poor Brumby was at Doctor Tokely's. A first-rate shop it was too. I introduced Charles to it. My uncle, the bishop, had his shovels there and they used for a considerable period to cover this humble roof with tiles," said F. B., tapping his capacious forehead; "I am sure he might have had Brumby," he added, in his melancholy tones, "but for those unlucky lies. She didn't want money. She had plenty. She longed to get into society and was bent on marrying a gentleman.

"But what I can't pardon in Honeyman is the way in which he has done poor old Ridley and his wife. I took him there, you know, thinking they would send their bills in once å month; that he was doing a good business; in fact that I had put 'em into a good thing. And the fellow has told me a score of times that he and the Ridleys were all right. But he has not only not paid his lodgings, but he has had money of them; he has given dinners; he has made Ridley pay for wine. He has kept paying lodgers out of the house, and he tells me all this with a burst of tears, when he sent for me to Lazarus's tonight, and I went to him, sir, because he was in distress-went into the lion's den, sir!” says F. B., looking round nobly. “I don't know how much he owes them; because, of course, you know, the sum he mentions ain't the right one. He never does tell the truth-does Charles. But think of the pluck of those good Ridleys never saying a single word to F. B. about the debt! 'We are poor, but we have saved some money and can lie out of it. And we think Mr. Honeyman will pay us,' says Mrs. Ridley to me this very evening. And she thrilled my heart-strings, sir; and I took her in my arms, and kissed the old woman," says Bayham; "and I rather astonished little Miss Cann, and young J. J., who came in with a picture under his arm. But she said she had kissed Master Frederick long before J. J. was born-and so she had-that good and faithful servant-and my emotion in embracing her was manly, sir, manly."

Here old Betsy came in to say that the supper" was a waitin' for Mr. Bayham and it was a gettin' very late;" and we left F. B. to his meal; and bidding adieu to Mrs. Nokes, Clive and I went each to our habitation.

AT

CHAPTER XXVI.

IN WHICH COLONEL NEWCOME'S HORSES ARE SOLD.

T an early hour the next morning I was not surprised to see Colonel Newcome at my chambers, to whom Clive had cominunicated Bayham's important news of the night before. The Colonel's object, as any one who knew him need scarcely be told, was to rescue his brother-in-law; and being ignorant of lawyers, sheriffs' officers, and their proceedings, he bethought him that he would apply to Lamb Court for information, and in so far showed some prudence, for at least I knew more of the world and its ways than my simple client, and was enabled to make better terms for the unfortunate prisoner, or rather for Colonel Newcome, who was the real sufferer, than Honeyman's creditors might otherwise have been disposed to give.

I thought it would be more prudent that our good Samaritan should not see the victim of rogues whom he was about to succour; and left him to entertain himself with Mr. Warrington in Lamb Court, while I sped to the lock-up house, where the May Fair pet was confined. A sickly smile played over his countenance as he beheld me when I was ushered to his private room. The reverend gentleman was not shaved; he had partaken of breakfast. I saw a glass which had once contained brandy on the dirty tray whereon his meal was placed: a greasy novel from a Chancery Lane library lay on the table; but he was at present occupied in writing one or more of those great long. letters, those laborious, ornate, eloquent statements, those documents so profusely underlined, in which the machinations of villains are laid bare with italic fervour; the coldness, to use no harsher phrase, of friends on whom reliance might have been placed; the outrageous. conduct of Solomons; the astonishing failure of Smith to pay a sum of money on which he had counted as on the Bank of England; finally, the infallible certainty of repaying (with what heartfelt thanks need not be said) the loan of so many pounds next Saturday week at farthest. All this, which some readers in the course of their experience have read no doubt in many handwritings, was duly set forth by poor Honeyman. There was a wafer in a wine-glass on the table, and the bearer no doubt below to carry the missive. They always send these

letters by a messenger, who is introduced in the postscript; he is always sitting in the hall when you get the letter, and is "a young man waiting for an answer, please."

No one can suppose that Honeyman laid a complete statement of his affairs before the negotiator who was charged to look into them. No debtor does confess all his debts, but breaks them gradually to his man of business, factor or benefactor, leading him on from surprise to surprise; and when he is in possession of the tailor's little account, introducing him to the bootmaker. Honeyman's schedule I felt perfectly certain was not correct. The detainers against him were trifling. "Moss of Wardour Street, one hundred and twenty-I believe I have paid him thousands in this very transaction," ejaculates Honeyman. "A heartless West End tradesman hearing of my misfortune-these people are all linked together, my dear Pendennis, and rush like vultures upon their prey!-Waddilove, the tailor, has another writ out for ninety-eight pounds: a man whom I have made by my recommendations! Tobbins, the bootmaker, his neighbour in Jermyn Street, forty-one pounds more, and that is all-I give you my word, all. In a few months, when my pew-rents will be coming in, I should have settled with those cormorants; otherwise, my total and irretrievable ruin, and the disgrace and humiliation of a prison attend me. I know it; I can bear it; I have been wretchedly weak, Pendennis: I can say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and I can-bear-my-penalty." In his finest moments he was never more pathetic. He turned his head away, and concealed it in a handkerchief not so white as those which veiled his emotions at Lady Whittlesea's.

How by degrees this slippery penitent was induced to make other confessions; how we got an idea of Mrs. Ridley's account from him, of his dealings with Mr. Sherrick, need not be mentioned here. The conclusion to which Colonel Newcome's ambassador came was, that to help such a man would be quite useless; and that the Fleet Prison would be a most wholesome retreat for this most reckless divine. Ere the day was out, Messrs. Waddilove and Tobbins had conferred with their neighbour in St. James's, Mr. Brace; and there came a detainer from that haberdasher for gloves, cravats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, that might have done credit to the most dandified young Guardsman.. Mr. Warrington was on Mr. Pendennis's side, and urged that the law should take its course. "Why help a man," said he, "who will not help himself? Let the law sponge out the fellow's debts; set him going again with twenty pounds when he quits the prison, and get him a chaplaincy in the Isle of Man."

I saw by the Colonel's grave kind face that these hard opinions did not suit him. "At all events, sir, promise us," we said, "that you will pay nothing yourself-that you won't see Honeyman's creditors,