be coming in, I should have settled with those cormorants;
otherwise, my total and irretrievable ruin, and the disgrace and
humiliation of a prison attends me. I know it; I can bear it; I have
been wretchedly weak, Pendennis: I can say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,
and I can--bear--my--penalty." In his finest moments he was never more
pathetic. He turned his head away, and concealed it in a handkerchief
not so white as those which veiled his emotions at Lady Whittlesea's.

How by degrees this slippery penitent was induced to make other
confessions; how we got an idea of Mrs. Ridley's account from him,
of his dealings with Mr. Sherrick, need not be mentioned here. The
conclusion to which Colonel Newcome's ambassador came was, that to help
such a man would be quite useless; and that the Fleet Prison would be
a most wholesome retreat for this most reckless divine. Ere the day was
out, Messrs. Waddilove and Tobbins had conferred with their neighbour in
St. James's, Mr. Brace; and there came a detainer from that haberdasher
for gloves, cravats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, that might have done
credit to the most dandified young Guardsman. Mr. Warrington was on Mr.
Pendennis's side, and urged that the law should take its course. "Why
help a man," said he, "who will not help himself? Let the law sponge out
the fellow's debts; set him going again with twenty pounds when he quits
the prison, and get him a chaplaincy in the Isle of Man."

I saw by the Colonel's grave kind face that these hard opinions did not
suit him. "At all events, sir, promise us," we said, "that you will
pay nothing yourself--that you won't see Honeyman's creditors, and let
people, who know the world better, deal with him." "Know the world,
young man!" cries Newcome; "I should think if I don't know the world at
my age, I never shall." And if he had lived to be as old as Jahaleel, a
boy could still have cheated him.

"I do not scruple to tell you," he said, after a pause during which a
plenty of smoke was delivered from the council of three, "that I have--a
fund--which I had set aside for mere purposes of pleasure, I give you
my word, and a part of which I shall think it my duty to devote to poor
Honeyman's distresses. The fund is not large. The money was intended,
in fact:--however, there it is. If Pendennis will go round to these
tradesmen, and make some composition with them, as their prices have
been no doubt enormously exaggerated, I see no harm. Besides t