o their great moneyed clients. Look at
me. I go in to them and talk to them whenever I am in the City. I hear
the news of 'Change, and carry it to our end of the town. It looks well,
sir, to be well with your banker; and at our end of London, perhaps, I
can do a good turn for the Newcomes."

It is certain that in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. James's my
revered uncle was at least the bankers' equal. On my coming to London,
he was kind enough to procure me invitations to some of Lady Anne
Newcome's evening parties in Park Lane, as likewise to Mrs. Newcome's
entertainments in Bryanstone Square; though, I confess, of these latter,
after a while, I was a lax and negligent attendant. "Between ourselves,
my good fellow," the shrewd old Mentor of those days would say, "Mrs.
Newcome's parties are not altogether select; nor is she a lady of the
very highest breeding; but it gives a man a good air to be seen at his
banker's house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes whenever you
are asked." And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I always fancied,
rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcome's manner to me, that she knew I
had but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once and again, in two or
three years, Mr. Hobson Newcome would meet me, and ask me to fill a
vacant place that day or the next evening at his table; which invitation
I might accept or otherwise. But one does not eat a man's salt, as it
were, at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London
hospitality. Your white waistcoat fills a gap in a man's table, and
retires filled for its service of the evening. "Gad," the dear old Major
used to say, "if we were not to talk freely of those we dine with, how
mum London would be! Some of the pleasantest evenings I have ever spent
have been when we have sate after a great dinner, en petit comite, and
abused the people who are gone. You have your turn, mon cher; but why
not? Do you suppose I fancy my friends haven't found out my little
faults and peculiarities? And as I can't help it, I let myself be
executed, and offer up my oddities de bonne grace. Entre nous, Brother
Hobson Newcome is a good fellow, but a vulgar fellow; and his wife--his
wife exactly suits him."

Once a year Lady Anne Newcome (about whom my Mentor was much more
circumspect; for I somehow used to remark that as the rank of persons
grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them with more caution and
respect)--once or twice in a year Lady Anne New