is appearance. Indeed, if he had
borrowed twenty pounds of Pendennis, he could not have been more timid,
or desirous of avoiding the Major; and the latter found that it was one
thing to seek a man, and another to find him.

Before the close of that day in which Strong's patron had given the
Chevalier the benefit of so many blessings before his face and curses
behind his back, Sir Francis Clavering, who had pledged his word and his
oath to his wife's advisers to draw or accept no more bills of exchange,
and to be content with the allowance which his victimised wife still
awarded him, had managed to sign his respectable name to a piece of
stamped paper, which the Baronet's friend, Mr. Moss Abrams, had carried
off, promising to have the bill "done" by a party with whose intimacy
Mr. Abrams was favoured. And it chanced that Strong heard of this
transaction at the place where the writings had been drawn,--in the
back-parlour, namely, of Mr. Santiago's cigar-shop, where the Chevalier
was constantly in the habit of spending an hour in the evening.

"He is at his old work again," Mr. Santiago told his customer. "He and
Moss Abrams were in my parlour. Moss sent out my boy for a stamp. It
must have been a bill for fifty pound. I heard the Baronet tell Moss
to date it two months back. He will pretend that it is an old bill, and
that he forgot it when he came to a settlement with his wife the other
day. I dare say they will give him some more money now he is clear." A
man who has the habit of putting his unlucky name to "promises to pay"
at six months, has the satisfaction of knowing, too, that his affairs
are known and canvassed, and his signature handed round among the very
worst knaves and rogues of London.

Mr. Santiago's shop was close by St. James's Street and Bury Street,
where we have had the honour of visiting our friend Major Pendennis in
his lodgings. The Major was walking daintily towards his apartment, as
Strong, burning with wrath and redolent of Havanna, strode along the
same pavement opposite to him.

"Confound these young men: how they poison everything with their smoke,"
thought the Major. "Here comes a fellow with mustachios and a cigar.
Every fellow who smokes and wears mustachios is a low fellow. Oh! it's
Mr. Strong.--I hope you are well, Mr. Strong?" and the old gentleman,
making a dignified bow to the Chevalier, was about to pass into his
house; directing towards the lock of the door, with trembling hand,