ey have some of
mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I am not in want, in order
that I might have the pleasure of receiving a kindness from you." And
we shook hands for the fourth time that morning, and the kind gentleman
left me to rejoin his son.

CHAPTER V. Clive's Uncles

The dinner so hospitably offered by the Colonel was gladly accepted, and
followed by many more entertainments at the cost of that good-natured
friend. He and an Indian chum of his lived at this time at Nerot's
Hotel, in Clifford Street, where Mr. Clive, too, found the good cheer a
great deal more to his taste than the homely, though plentiful, fare at
Grey Friars, at which, of course, when boys, we all turned up our noses,
though many a poor fellow, in the struggles of after-life, has looked
back with regret very likely to that well-spread youthful table. Thus
my intimacy with the father and the son grew to be considerable, and a
great deal more to my liking than my relations with Clive's City uncles,
which have been mentioned in the last chapter, and which were, in truth,
exceedingly distant and awful.

If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were like
mine, where would have been Newcome Hall and Park Lane, Marblehead and
Bryanstone Square? I used, by strong efforts of self-denial, to maintain
a balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so that my
account might still remain open; and fancied the clerks and cashiers
grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that awful
counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the
laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein
behind the glazed partition I could see the bald heads of Newcome
Brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper,
I would as soon have thought of walking into the Doctor's own library
at Grey Friars, or of volunteering to take an armchair in a dentist's
studio, and have a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct.
My good uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept
naturally but a very small account with Hobsons', would walk into the
parlour and salute the two magnates who governed there with the ease and
gravity of a Rothschild. "My good fellow," the kind old gentleman would
say to his nephew and pupil, "il faut se faire valoir. I tell you, sir,
your bankers like to keep every gentleman's account. And it's a mistake
to suppose they are only civil t