h, the money-lender,
to whom Bloundell introduced him, and with whom he had various
transactions, in which the young rascal's signature appeared upon
stamped paper, treated him, according to Pen's own account, with
forbearance, and never mulcted him of more than a hundred per cent. The
old college-cook, his fervent admirer, made him a private bill, offered
to send him in dinners up to the very last, and never would have pressed
his account to his dying day. There was that kindness and frankness
about Arthur Pendennis, which won most people who came in contact with
him, and which, if it rendered him an easy prey to rogues, got him,
perhaps, more goodwill than he merited from many honest men. It was
impossible to resist his good-nature, or, in his worst moments, not to
hope for his rescue from utter ruin.

At the time of his full career of university pleasure, he would leave
the gayest party to go and sit with a sick friend. He never knew
the difference between small and great in the treatment of his
acquaintances, however much the unlucky lad's tastes, which were of the
sumptuous order, led him to prefer good society; he was only too ready
to share his guinea with a poor friend, and when he got money had an
irresistible propensity for paying, which he never could conquer through
life.

In his third year at college, the duns began to gather awfully round
about him, and there was a levee at his oak which scandalised the
tutors, and would have scared many a stouter heart. With some of
these he used to battle, some he would bully (under Mr. Bloundell's
directions, who was a master in this art, though he took a degree in no
other), and some deprecate. And it is reported of him that little Mary
Frodsham, the daughter of a certain poor gilder and frame-maker,
whom Mr. Pen had thought fit to employ, and who had made a number of
beautiful frames for his fine prints, coming to Pendennis with a piteous
tale that her father was ill with ague, and that there was an execution
in their house, Pen in an anguish of remorse rushed away, pawned his
grand watch and every single article of jewellery except two old gold
sleeve-buttons, which had belonged to his father, and rushed with the
proceeds to Frodsham's shop, where, with tears in his eyes, and the
deepest repentance and humility, he asked the poor tradesman's pardon.

This, young gentlemen, is not told as an instance of Pen's virtue, but
rather of his weakness. It would have been m