He could not paint a bit, to be sure, but his heads in
black-and-white were really tolerable; his sketches of horses very
vigorous and lifelike. Mr. Gandish said if Clive would come for three
or four years into his academy he could make something of him. Mr. Smee
shook his head, and said he was afraid, that kind of loose, desultory
study, that keeping of aristocratic company, was anything but favourable
to a young artist--Smee, who would walk five miles to attend an evening
party of ever so little a great man!

CHAPTER XLIV. In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an Amiable Light

Mr. Frederick Bayham waited at Fitzroy Square while Clive was yet
talking with his friends there, and favoured that gentleman with his
company home to the usual smoky refreshment. Clive always rejoiced in F.
B.'s society, whether he was in a sportive mood, or, as now, in a solemn
and didactic vein. F. B. had been more than ordinarily majestic all
the evening. "I dare say you find me a good deal altered, Clive," he
remarked; "I am a good deal altered. Since that good Samaritan, your
kind father, had compassion on a poor fellow fallen among thieves
(though I don't say, mind you, he was much better than his company), F.
B. has mended some of his ways. I am trying a course of industry, sir.
Powers, perhaps naturally great, have been neglected over the wine-cup
and the die. I am beginning to feel my way; and my chiefs yonder, who
have just walked home with their cigars in their mouths, and without as
much as saying, F. B., my boy, shall we go to the Haunt and have a cool
lobster and a glass of table-beer,--which they certainly do not consider
themselves to be,--I say, sir, the Politician and the Literary
Critic" (there was a most sarcastic emphasis laid on these phrases,
characterising Messrs. Warrington and Pendennis) "may find that there is
a humble contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette, whose name, may be, the
amateur shall one day reckon even higher than their own. Mr. Warrington
I do not say so much--he is an able man, sir, an able man;--but there
is that about your exceedin self-satisfied friend, Mr. Arthur Pendennis,
which--well, well--let time show. You did not--get the--hem--paper at
Rome and Naples, I suppose?"

"Forbidden by the Inquisition," says Clive, delighted; "and at Naples
the king furious against it."

"I don't wonder they don't like it at Rome, sir. There's serious matter
in it which may set the prelates of a certai