Pen craned over the coach to have a
long look at the great Hurtle. He was a Boniface man, said Pen. And Mr.
Doolan, of the Star newspaper (for such was the gentleman's name and
address upon the card which he handed to Pen), said "Faith he was, and
he knew him very well." Pen thought it was quite an honour to have seen
the great Mr. Hurtle, whose works he admired. He believed fondly, as
yet, in authors, reviewers, and editors of newspapers. Even Wagg, whose
books did not appear to him to be masterpieces of human intellect, he
yet secretly revered as a successful writer. He mentioned that he had
met Wagg in the country, and Doolan told him how that famous novelist
received three hundther pounds a volume for every one of his novels. Pen
began to calculate instantly whether he might not make five thousand a
year.

The very first acquaintance of his own whom Arthur met, as the coach
pulled up at the Gloster Coffee-house, was his old friend Harry Foker,
who came prancing down Arlington Street behind an enormous cab-horse.
He had white kid gloves and white reins, and nature had by this time
decorated him with a considerable tuft on the chin. A very small
cab-boy, vice Stoopid retired, swung on behind Foker's vehicle;
knock-kneed and in the tightest leather breeches. Foker looked at the
dusty coach, and the smoking horses of the 'Alacrity' by which he
had made journeys in former times. "What, Foker!" cried out
Pendennis--"Hullo! Pen, my boy!" said the other, and he waved his whip
by way of amity and salute to Arthur, who was very glad to see his queer
friend's kind old face. Mr. Doolan had a great respect for Pen who had
an acquaintance in such a grand cab; and Pen was greatly excited and
pleased to be at liberty and in London. He asked Doolan to come and dine
with him at the Covent Garden Coffee-house, where he put up: he called a
cab and rattled away thither in the highest spirits. He was glad to see
the bustling waiter and polite bowing landlord again; and asked for the
landlady, and missed the old Boots and would have liked to shake hands
with everybody. He had a hundred pounds in his pocket. He dressed
himself in his very best; dined in the coffee-room with a modest pint
of sherry (for he was determined to be very economical), and went to the
theatre adjoining.

The lights and the music, the crowd and the gaiety, charmed and
exhilarated Pen, as those sights will do young fellows from college and
the country, to whom they