ot himself; his hands in his pockets, plunged in thought. The stars
and moon shining tranquilly overhead, looked down upon Mr. Foker that
night, as he in his turn sentimentally regarded them. And he went and
gazed upwards at the house in Grosvenor Place, and at the windows which
he supposed to be those of the beloved object; and he moaned and he
sighed in a way piteous and surprising to witness, which Policeman
X did, who informed Sir Francis Clavering's people, as they took the
refreshment of beer on the coach-box at the neighbouring public-house,
after bringing home their lady from the French play, that there had been
another chap hanging about the premises that evening--a little chap,
dressed like a swell.

And now with that perspicuity and ingenuity and enterprise which only
belongs to a certain passion, Mr. Foker began to dodge Miss Amory
through London, and to appear wherever he could meet her. If Lady
Clavering went to the French play, where her ladyship had a box, Mr.
Foker, whose knowledge of the language, as we have heard, was not
conspicuous, appeared in a stall. He found out where her engagements
were (it is possible that Anatole, his man, was acquainted with Sir
Francis Clavering's gentleman, and so got a sight of her ladyship's
engagement-book), and at many of these evening parties Mr. Foker
made his appearance--to the surprise of the world, and of his mother
especially, whom he ordered to apply for cards to these parties, for
which until now he had shown a supreme contempt. He told the pleased and
unsuspicious lady that he went to parties because it was right for him
to see the world: he told her that he went to the French play because
he wanted to perfect himself in the language, and there was no such good
lesson as a comedy or vaudeville,--and when one night the astonished
Lady Agnes saw him stand up and dance, and complimented him upon his
elegance and activity, the mendacious little rogue asserted that he had
learned to dance in Paris, whereas Anatole knew that his young master
used to go off privily to an academy in Brewer Street, and study there
for some hours in the morning. The casino of our modern days was not
invented, or was in its infancy as yet; and gentlemen of Mr. Foker's
time had not the facilities of acquiring the science of dancing which
are enjoyed by our present youth.

Old Pendennis seldom missed going to church. He considered it to be his
duty as a gentleman to patronise the institu