worthy old gentleman made his time-honoured
joke.

Lady Agnes, who, wrapped up in Harry, was the fondest of mothers, and
one of the most good-natured though not the wisest of women, received
her son's friend with great cordiality: and astonished Pen by accounts
of the severe course of studies which her darling boy was pursuing, and
which she feared might injure his dear health. Foker the elder burst
into a horse-laugh at some of these speeches, and the heir of the house
winked his eye very knowingly at his friend. And Lady Agnes then going
through her son's history from the earliest time, and recounting his
miraculous sufferings in the measles and hooping-cough, his escape
from drowning, the shocking tyrannies practised upon him at that horrid
school, whither Mr. Foker would send him because he had been brought up
there himself, and she never would forgive that disagreeable Doctor, no
never--Lady Agnes, we say, having prattled away for an hour incessantly
about her son, voted the two Messieurs Pendennis most agreeable men; and
when pheasants came with the second course, which the Major praised
as the very finest birds he ever saw, her ladyship said they came from
Logwood (as the Major knew perfectly well), and hoped that they would
both pay her a visit there--at Christmas, or when dear Harry was at home
for the vacations.

"God bless you, my dear boy," Pendennis said to Arthur, as they were
lighting their candles in Bury Street afterwards to go to bed. "You
made that little allusion to Agincourt, where one of the Roshervilles
distinguished himself, very neatly and well, although Lady Agnes did not
quite understand it: but it was exceedingly well for a beginner--though
you oughtn't to blush so, by the way--and I beseech you, my dear Arthur,
to remember through life, that with an entree--with a good entree,
mind--it is just as easy for you to have good society as bad, and that
it costs a man, when properly introduced, no more trouble or soins to
keep a good footing in the best houses in London than to dine with a
lawyer in Bedford Square. Mind this when you are at Oxbridge pursuing
your studies, and for Heaven's sake be very particular in the
acquaintances which you make. The premier pas in life is the most
important of all--did you write to your mother to-day?--No?--well,
do, before you go, and call and ask Mr. Foker for a frank--They like
it--Good night. God bless you."

Pen wrote a droll account of his doings in Lon