ut one can tell nothing but the truth; and
I would rather starve, by Jove, and never earn another penny by my pen"
(this redoubted instrument had now been in use for some six weeks,
and Pen spoke of it with vast enthusiasm and respect) "than strike an
opponent an unfair blow, or, if called upon to place him, rank him below
his honest desert."

"Well, Mr. Pendennis, when we want Bacon smashed, we must get some other
hammer to do it," Shandon said, with fatal good-nature; and very likely
thought within himself, "A few years hence perhaps the young gentleman
won't be so squeamish." The veteran Condottiere himself was no longer so
scrupulous. He had fought and killed on so many a side for many a year
past, that remorse had long left him. "Gad," said he, "you've a tender
conscience, Mr. Pendennis. It's the luxury of all novices, and I may
have had one once myself; but that sort of bloom wears off with the
rubbing of the world, and I'm not going to the trouble myself of putting
on an artificial complexion, like our pious friend Wenham, or our model
of virtue, Wagg."

"I don't know whether some people's hypocrisy is not better, Captain,
than other's cynicism."

"It's more profitable, at any rate," said the Captain, biting his
nails. "That Wenham is as dull a quack as ever quacked: and you see the
carriage in which he drove to dinner. Faith, it'll be a long time before
Mrs. Shandon will take a drive in her own chariot. God help her, poor
thing!" And Pen went away from his chief, after their little dispute and
colloquy, pointing his own moral to the Captain's tale, and thinking
to himself, "Behold this man, stored with genius, wit, learning, and a
hundred good natural gifts: see how he has wrecked them, by paltering
with his honesty, and forgetting to respect himself. Wilt thou remember
thyself, O Pen? thou art conceited enough! Wilt thou sell thy honour for
a bottle? No, by heaven's grace, we will be honest, whatever befalls,
and our mouths shall only speak the truth when they open."

A punishment, or, at least, a trial, was in store for Mr. Pen. In the
very next number of the Pall Mall Gazette, Warrington read out, with
roars of laughter, an article which by no means amused Arthur Pendennis,
who was himself at work with a criticism for the next week's number
of the same journal; and in which the Spring Annual was ferociously
maltreated by some unknown writer. The person of all most cruelly mauled
was Pen himself. His verse