he was proud to think that he
deserved the money which he earned. We may be sure that the Pall Mall
Gazette was taken in regularly at Fairoaks, and read with delight by the
two ladies there. It was received at Clavering Park, too, where we know
there was a young lady of great literary tastes; and old Doctor Portman
himself, to whom the widow sent her paper after she had got her son's
articles by heart, signified his approval of Pen's productions, saying
that the lad had spirit, taste, and fancy, and wrote, if not like a
scholar, at any rate like a gentleman.

And what was the astonishment and delight of our friend Major Pendennis,
on walking into one of his clubs, the Regent, where Wenham, Lord
Falconet, and some other gentlemen of good reputation and fashion were
assembled, to hear them one day talking over a number of the Pall Mall
Gazette, and of an article which appeared in its columns, making some
bitter fun of the book recently published by the wife of a celebrated
member of the opposition party. The book in question was a Book of
Travels in Spain and Italy, by the Countess of Muffborough, in which
it was difficult to say which was the most wonderful, the French or the
English, in which languages her ladyship wrote indifferently, and upon
the blunders of which the critic pounced with delightful mischief.
The critic was no other than Pen: he jumped and danced round about his
subject with the greatest jocularity and high spirits: he showed up the
noble lady's faults with admirable mock gravity and decorum. There was
not a word in the article which was not polite and gentlemanlike; and
the unfortunate subject of the criticism was scarified and laughed at
during the operation. Wenham's bilious countenance was puckered up with
malign pleasure as he read the critique. Lady Muffborough had not asked
him to her parties during the last year. Lord Falconet giggled and
laughed with all his heart; Lord Muffborough and he had been rivals ever
since they began life; and these complimented Major Pendennis, who until
now had scarcely paid any attention to some hints which his Fairoaks
correspondence threw out of "dear Arthur's constant and severe literary
occupations, which I fear may undermine the poor boy's health," and had
thought any notice of Mr. Pen and his newspaper connexions quite below
his dignity as a Major and a gentleman.

But when the oracular Wenham praised the boy's production; when Lord
Falconet, who had had the