he had
just left.

"That was a good dinner, sir," said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar which
I offered to him, and disposed to be very social and communicative.
"Hobson Newcome's table is about as good a one as any I ever put my legs
under. You didn't have twice of turtle, sir, I remarked that--I always
do, at that house especially, for I know where Newcome gets it. We
belong to the same livery in the City, Hobson and I, the Oystermongers'
Company, sir, and we like our turtle good, I can tell you--good, and a
great deal of it, you say. Hay, hay, not so bad!

"I suppose you're a young barrister, sucking lawyer, or that sort of
thing. Because you was put at the end of the table and nobody took
notice of you. That's my place too; I'm a relative and Newcome asks me
if he has got a place to spare. He met me in the City to-day, and says,
'Tom,' says he, 'there's some dinner in the Square at half-past seven:
I wish you would go and fetch Louisa, whom we haven't seen this ever so
long.' Louisa is my wife, sir--Maria's sister--Newcome married that
gal from my house. 'No, no,' says I, 'Hobson; Louisa's engaged nursing
number eight'--that's our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me,
sir, my missis won't come any more at no price. She can't stand it; Mrs.
Newcome's dam patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody. 'Well,
Hobson, my boy,' says I, 'a good dinner's a good dinner; and I'll come
though Louisa won't, that is, can't.'"

While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was
discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr.
Arthur Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the
Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that dinner which Mrs.
Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued talking--"I'm
an old stager, I am. I don't mind the rows between the women. I believe
Mrs. Newcome and Lady Newcome's just as bad too; I know Maria is
always driving at her one way or the other, and calling her proud and
aristocratic, and that; and yet my wife says Maria, who pretends to be
such a Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and his lady. 'And why
should she, Loo, my dear?' says I. 'I don't want to meet Lady Newcome,
nor Lord Kew, nor any of 'em.' Lord Kew, ain't it an odd name? Tearing
young swell, that Lord Kew: tremendous wild fellow."

"I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man; I was there in the
old woman's time, and Mr. Newcome's--the father of