y. Pendennis's coat, his white gloves, his whiskers, his very
cane, were perfect of their kind as specimens of the costume of a
military man en retraite. At a distance, or seeing his back merely, you
would have taken him to be not more than thirty years old: it was only
by a nearer inspection that you saw the factitious nature of his rich
brown hair, and that there were a few crow's-feet round about the
somewhat faded eyes of his handsome mottled face. His nose was of the
Wellington pattern. His hands and wristbands were beautifully long and
white. On the latter he wore handsome gold buttons given to him by his
Royal Highness the Duke of York, and on the others more than one elegant
ring, the chief and largest of them being emblazoned with the famous
arms of Pendennis.

He always took possession of the same table in the same corner of the
room, from which nobody ever now thought of ousting him. One or two
mad wags and wild fellows had in former days, and in freak or bravado,
endeavoured twice or thrice to deprive him of this place; but there was
a quiet dignity in the Major's manner as he took his seat at the next
table, and surveyed the interlopers, which rendered it impossible for
any man to sit and breakfast under his eye; and that table--by the fire,
and yet near the window--became his own. His letters were laid out there
in expectation of his arrival, and many was the young fellow about town
who looked with wonder at the number of those notes, and at the seals
and franks which they bore. If there was any question about etiquette,
society, who was married to whom, of what age such and such a duke was,
Pendennis was the man to whom every one appealed. Marchionesses used to
drive up to the Club, and leave notes for him, or fetch him out. He was
perfectly affable. The young men liked to walk with him in the Park or
down Pall Mall; for he touched his hat to everybody, and every other man
he met was a lord.

The Major sate down at his accustomed table then, and while the waiters
went to bring him his toast and his hot newspaper, he surveyed his
letters through his gold double eye-glass. He carried it so gaily, you
would hardly have known it was spectacles in disguise, and examined one
pretty note after another, and laid them by in order. There were large
solemn dinner cards, suggestive of three courses and heavy conversation;
there were neat little confidential notes, conveying female entreaties;
there was a note on thi