ugh. You'll have
better luck next time."

Pen looked at his early acquaintance,--who had been plucked, who had
been rusticated, who had only, after repeated failures, learned to
read and write correctly, and who, in spite of all these drawbacks, had
attained the honour of a degree. "This man has passed," he thought, "and
I have failed!" It was almost too much for him to bear.

"Good-bye, Spavin," said he; "I'm very glad you are through. Don't let
me keep you; I'm in a hurry--I'm going to town to-night."

"Gammon," said Mr. Spavin. "This ain't the way to town; this is the
Fenbury road, I tell you."

"I was just going to turn back," Pen said.

"All the coaches are full with the men going down," Spavin said. Pen
winced. "You'd not get a place for a ten-pound note. Get into my yellow;
I'll drop you at Mudford, where you have a chance of the Fenbury mail.
I'll lend you a hat and a coat; I've got lots. Come along; jump in,
old boy--go it, leathers!"--and in this way Pen found himself in Mr.
Spavin's postchaise, and rode with that gentleman as far as the Ram Inn
at Mudford, fifteen miles from Oxbridge; where the Fenbury mail changed
horses, and where Pen got a place on to London.

The next day there was an immense excitement in Boniface College,
Oxbridge, where, for some time, a rumour prevailed, to the terror
of Pen's tutor and tradesmen, that Pendennis, maddened at losing his
degree, had made away with himself--a battered cap, in which his name
was almost discernible, together with a seal bearing his crest of an
eagle looking at a now extinct sun, had been found three miles on the
Fenbury road, near a mill-stream, and, for four-and-twenty hours, it was
supposed that poor Pen had flung himself into the stream, until letters
arrived from him, bearing the London post-mark.

The mail reached London at the dreary hour of five; and he hastened to
the inn at Covent Garden, at which he was accustomed to put up, where
the ever-wakeful porter admitted him, and showed him to a bed. Pen
looked hard at the man, and wondered whether Boots knew he was plucked?
When in bed he could not sleep there. He tossed about until the
appearance of the dismal London daylight, when he sprang up desperately,
and walked off to his uncle's lodgings in Bury Street; where the maid,
who was scouring the steps, looked up suspiciously at him, as he came
with an unshaven face, and yesterday's linen. He thought she knew of his
mishap, too.

"Good evens