in life," the
other answered; "we live together from habit and convenience; and he
cares for me no more than you do. What is it you want to ask me, Mr.
Warrington? You ain't come to visit me, I know very well. Nobody comes
to visit me. It is about Fanny, the porter's daughter, you are come--I
see that--very well. Is Mr. Pendennis, now he has got well, anxious
to see her again? Does his lordship the Sultan propose to throw his
'andkerchief to her? She has been very ill, sir, ever since the day when
Mrs. Pendennis turned her out of doors--kind of a lady, wasn't it?
The poor girl and myself found the young gentleman raving in a fever,
knowing nobody, with nobody to tend him but his drunken laundress--she
watched day and night by him. I set off to fetch his uncle. Mamma comes
and turns Fanny to the right-about. Uncle comes and leaves me to pay the
cab. Carry my compliments to the ladies and gentleman, and say we are
both very thankful, very. Why, a countess couldn't have behaved better,
and for an apothecary's lady, as I'm given to understand Mrs. Pendennis
was--I'm sure her behaviour is most uncommon aristocratic and genteel.
She ought to have a double-gilt pestle and mortar to her coach."

It was from Mr. Huxter that Bows had learned Pen's parentage, no doubt,
and if he took Pen's part against the young surgeon, and Fanny's against
Mr. Pendennis, it was because the old gentleman was in so savage a mood,
that his humour was to contradict everybody.

Warrington was curious, and not ill pleased at the musician's taunts and
irascibility. "I never heard of these transactions," he said, "or got
but a very imperfect account of them from Major Pendennis. What was a
lady to do? I think (I have never spoken with her on the subject) she
had some notion that the young woman and my friend Pen were on--on
terms of--of an intimacy which Mrs. Pendennis could not, of course,
recognise----"

"Oh, of course not, sir. Speak out, sir; say what you mean at once,
that the young gentleman of the Temple had made a victim of the girl of
Shepherd's Inn, eh? And so she was turned to be out of doors--or brayed
alive in the double-gilt pestle and mortar, by Jove! No, Mr. Warrington,
there was no such thing: there was no victimising, or if there was,
Mr. Arthur was the victim, not the girl. He is an honest fellow, he is,
though he is conceited, and a puppy sometimes. He can feel like a man,
and run away from temptation like a man. I own it, though I