presided there, to give him a glass of 'his mixture.'

Pen and his family had been known at the George ever since they came
into the country; and Mr. Pendennis's carriages and horses always put up
there when he paid a visit to the county town. The landlady dropped the
heir of Fairoaks a very respectful curtsey, and complimented him
upon his growth and manly appearance, and asked news of the family at
Fairoaks, and of Doctor Portman and the Clavering people, to all of
which questions the young gentleman answered with much affability. But
he spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Rincer with that sort of good nature with which
a young Prince addresses his father's subjects; never dreaming that
those bonnes gens were his equals in life.

Mr. Foker's behaviour was quite different. He inquired for Rincer and
the cold in his nose, told Mrs. Rincer a riddle, asked Miss Rincer when
she would be ready to marry him, and paid his compliments to Miss Brett,
the other young lady in the bar, all in a minute of time, and with a
liveliness and facetiousness which set all these ladies in a giggle; and
he gave a cluck, expressive of great satisfaction, as he tossed off his
mixture which Miss Rincer prepared and handed to him.

"Have a drop," said he to Pen, "it's recommended to me by the faculty as
a what-do-you-call-'em--a stomatic, old boy. Give the young one a glass,
R., and score it up to yours truly."

Poor Pen took a glass, and everybody laughed at the face which he made
as he put it down--gin, bitters, and some other cordial was the compound
with which Mr. Foker was so delighted as to call it by the name of
Foker's own. As Pen choked, sputtered, and made faces, the other took
occasion to remark to Mr. Rincer that the young fellow was green, very
green, but that he would soon form him; and then they proceeded to order
dinner--which Mr. Foker determined should consist of turtle and venison;
cautioning the landlady to be very particular about icing the wine.

Then Messrs. Foker and Pen strolled down the High Street together--the
former having a cigar in his mouth, which he had drawn out of a case
almost as big as a portmanteau. He went in to replenish it at Mr.
Lewis's, and talked to that gentleman for a while, sitting down on the
counter: he then looked in at the fruiterer's, to see the pretty girl
there, to whom he paid compliments similar to those before addressed to
the bar at the George; then they passed the County Chronicle office, for
whi