friend here," Pen answered.

"You had better come home with me," said the Doctor.

"His mother knows he's out, sir," Mr. Foker remarked; "don't she,
Pendennis?"

"But that does not prove that he had not better come home with me," the
Doctor growled, and he walked off with great dignity.

"Old boy don't like the weed, I suppose," Foker said. "Ha! who's
here?--here's the General, and Bingley, the manager. How do, Cos? How
do, Bingley?"

"How does my worthy and gallant young Foker?" said the gentleman
addressed as the General; and who wore a shabby military cape with a
mangy collar, and a hat cocked very much over one eye.

"Trust you are very well, my very dear sir," said the other gentleman,
"and that the Theatre Royal will have the honour of your patronage
to-night. We perform 'The Stranger,' in which your humble servant
will---"

"Can't stand you in tights and Hessians, Bingley," young Mr. Foker said.
On which the General, with the Irish accent, said, "But I think ye'll
like Miss Fotheringay, in Mrs. Haller, or me name's not Jack Costigan."

Pen looked at these individuals with the greatest interest. He had never
seen an actor before; and he saw Dr. Portman's red face looking over the
Doctor's shoulder, as he retreated from the Cathedral Yard, evidently
quite dissatisfied with the acquaintances into whose hands Pen had
fallen.

Perhaps it would have been much better for him had he taken the parson's
advice and company home. But which of us knows his fate?

CHAPTER IV. Mrs. Haller

Having returned to the George, Mr. Foker and his guest sate down to
a handsome repast in the coffee-room; where Mr. Rincer brought in
the first dish, and bowed as gravely as if he was waiting upon the
Lord-Lieutenant of the county. Mr. Foker attacked the turtle and venison
with as much gusto as he had shown the year before, when he used to make
feasts off ginger-beer and smuggled polonies. Pen could not but respect
his connoisseurship as he pronounced the champagne to be condemned
gooseberry, and winked at the port with one eye. The latter he declared
to be of the right sort; and told the waiters there was no way of
humbugging him. All these attendants he knew by their Christian names,
and showed a great interest in their families; and as the London coaches
drove up, which in those early days used to set off from the George,
Mr. Foker flung the coffee-room window open, and called the guards and
coachmen by their Christi