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through which I was taken into the ship in a very weak condition. The Captain, a worthy Shropshire man, was returning to England, and we came into the Downs on the 3rd of June, 1706, about nine months after my escape. When I came to my own house my wife protested I should never go to sea any more. * * * * * WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY The Newcomes William Makepeace Thackeray was born on July 18, 1811, at Calcutta, where his father was in the service of the East India Company. He was educated at Charterhouse School, then situated in Smithfield, and spent two years at Trinity College, Cambridge. After travelling on the continent as an artist, he returned to London, and wrote for the "Examiner" and "Fraser's Magazine," subsequently joining the staff of "Punch." "The Newcomes," finished by Thackeray at Paris in 1855, was the fourth of his great novels. Without being in any real sense a sequel to "Pendennis," it reintroduces us to several characters of the earlier work, and is told in the first person by Arthur Pendennis himself. The Gray Friars School is the Charterhouse where Thackeray was at school. In 1859 Thackeray started the "Cornhill Magazine," and on December 23, 1863, he died at Kensington. Besides his five great novels, a large number of shorter stories and sketches came from Thackeray's pen. _I.--The "Cave of Harmony"_ It was in the days of my youth, when, having been to the play with some young fellows of my own age, we became naturally hungry at twelve o'clock at night, and a desire for welsh-rarebits and good old glee singing led us to the "Cave of Harmony," then kept by the celebrated Hoskins, among whose friends we were proud to count. It happened that there was a very small attendance at the "cave" that night, and we were all more sociable and friendly because the company was select. The songs were chiefly of the sentimental class; such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which I speak. There came into the "cave" a gentleman with a lean brown face and long black mustachios, and evidently a stranger to the place. At least he had not visited it for a long time. He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in his company; and, calling for sherry-and-water, he listened to the music and twirled his mustachios with great enthusiasm. At the very first g
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