Colchicum's
black one, why don't you have a shy at a brown one, hay? you know whose
I mean. It got into Lady Clavering's carriage."

"Under my uncle's hat? My uncle is a martyr, Foker, my boy. My uncle has
been doing excruciating duties all night. He likes to go to bed rather
early. He has a dreadful headache if he sits up and touches supper. He
always has the gout if he walks or stands much at a ball. He has been
sitting up, and standing up, and supping. He has gone home to the gout
and the headache, and for my sake. Shall I make fun of the old boy? no,
not for Venice!"

"How do you mean that he has been doing it for your sake?" Foker asked,
looking rather alarmed.

"Boy! canst thou keep a secret if I impart it to thee?" Pen cried out,
in high spirits. "Art thou of good counsel? Wilt thou swear? Wilt thou
be mum, or wilt thou preach? Wilt thou be silent and hear, or wilt
thou speak and die?" And as he spoke, flinging himself into an absurd
theatrical attitude, the men in the cabstand in Piccadilly wondered and
grinned at the antics of the two young swells.

"What the doose are you driving at?" Foker asked, looking very much
agitated.

Pen, however, did not remark this agitation much, but continued in the
same bantering and excited vein. "Henry, friend of my youth," he said,
"and witness of my early follies, though dull at thy books, yet thou art
not altogether deprived of sense,--nay, blush not, Henrico, thou hast a
good portion of that, and of courage and kindness too, at the service of
thy friends. Were I in a strait of poverty, I would come to my Foker's
purse. Were I in grief, I would discharge my grief upon his sympathising
bosom----"

"Gammon, Pen--go on," Foker said.

"I would, Henrico, upon thy studs, and upon thy cambric worked by the
hands of beauty, to adorn the breast of valour! Know then, friend of
my boyhood's days, that Arthur Pendennis of the Upper Temple,
student-at-law, feels that he is growing lonely and old Care is
furrowing his temples, and Baldness is busy with his crown. Shall we
stop and have a drop of coffee at this stall, it looks very hot and
nice? Look how that cabman is blowing at his saucer. No, you won't?
Aristocrat! I resume my tale. I am getting on in life. I have got
devilish little money. I want some. I am thinking of getting some, and
settling in life. I'm thinking of settling. I'm thinking of marrying,
old boy. I'm thinking of becoming a moral man; a steady port and
sherry