h! "The
impudent bog-trotting scamp," he thought, "dare to threaten me! Dare to
talk of permitting his damned Costigans to marry with the Pendennises!
Send me a challenge! If the fellow can get anything in the shape of a
gentleman to carry it, I have the greatest mind in life not to baulk
him.--Psha! what would people say if I were to go out with a tipsy
mountebank, about a row with an actress in a barn!" So when the Major
saw Dr. Portman, who asked anxiously regarding the issue of his battle
with the dragon, Mr. Pendennis did not care to inform the divine of the
General's insolent behaviour, but stated that the affair was a very ugly
and disagreeable one, and that it was by no means over yet.

He enjoined Doctor and Mrs. Portman to say nothing about the business at
Fairoaks; whither he contented himself with despatching the note we have
before mentioned. And then he returned to his hotel, where he vented
his wrath upon Mr. Morgan his valet, "dammin and cussin upstairs and
downstairs," as that gentleman observed to Mr. Foker's man, in whose
company he partook of dinner in the servants' room of the George.

The servant carried the news to his master; and Mr. Foker having
finished his breakfast about this time, it being two o'clock in the
afternoon, remembered that he was anxious to know the result of the
interview between his two friends, and having inquired the number of
the Major's sitting-room, went over in his brocade dressing-gown, and
knocked for admission.

Major Pendennis had some business, as he had stated, respecting a
lease of the widow's, about which he was desirous of consulting old Mr.
Tatham, the lawyer, who had been his brother's man of business, and who
had a branch-office at Clavering, where he and his son attended market
and other days three or four in the week. This gentleman and his client
were now in consultation when Mr. Foker showed his grand dressing-gown
and embroidered skull-cap at Major Pendennis's door.

Seeing the Major engaged with papers and red-tape, and an old man with a
white head, the modest youth was for drawing back--and said, "O, you're
busy--call again another time." But Mr. Pendennis wanted to see him,
and begged him, with a smile, to enter: whereupon Mr. Foker took off
the embroidered tarboosh or fez (it had been worked by the fondest
of mothers) and advanced, bowing to the gentlemen and smiling on them
graciously. Mr. Tatham had never seen so splendid an apparition before
as