t of your Inn yesterday, as if you wanted
to watch that I shouldn't steal something." Here Pen stammered and
turned red, directly he had said the words; he felt he had given the
other an opening, which Bows instantly took.

"I do think you came to steal something, as you say the words, sir,"
Bows said. "Do you mean to say that you came to pay a visit to poor old
Bows, the fiddler; or to Mrs. Bolton, at the porter's lodge? O fie! Such
a fine gentleman as Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, doesn't condescend
to walk up to my garret, or to sit in a laundress's kitchen, but for
reasons of his own. And my belief is that you came to steal a pretty
girl's heart away, and to ruin it, and to spurn it afterwards, Mr.
Arthur Pendennis. That's what the world makes of you young dandies, you
gentlemen of fashion, you high and mighty aristocrats that trample upon
the people. It's sport to you, but what is it to the poor, think you;
the toys of your pleasures, whom you play with and whom you fling into
the streets when you are tired? I know your order, sir. I know your
selfishness, and your arrogance, and your pride. What does it matter to
my lord, that the poor man's daughter is made miserable, and her family
brought to shame? You must have your pleasures, and the people of course
must pay for them. What are we made for, but for that? It's the way with
you all--the way with you all, sir."

Bows was speaking beside the question, and Pen had his advantage here,
which he was not sorry to take--not sorry to put off the debate from the
point upon which his adversary had first engaged it. Arthur broke out
with a sort of laugh, for which he asked Bows's pardon. "Yes, I am
an aristocrat," he said, "in a palace up three pair of stairs, with
a carpet nearly as handsome as yours, Mr. Bows. My life is passed in
grinding the people, is it?--in ruining virgins and robbing the poor? My
good sir, this is very well in a comedy, where Job Thornberry slaps his
breast, and asks my Lord how dare he trample on an honest man and poke
out an Englishman's fireside; but in real life, Mr. Bows, to a man who
has to work for his bread as much as you do--how can you talk about
aristocrats tyrannising over the people? Have I ever done you a wrong?
or assumed airs of superiority over you? Did you not have an early
regard for me--in days when we were both of us romantic young fellows,
Mr. Bows? Come, don't be angry with me now, and let us be as good
friends as we were befor