A History of Pendennis Volume I Part 42

"As rogues of note in former days who had some wicked work to perform--an enemy to be put out of the way, a quant.i.ty of false coin to be pa.s.sed, a lie to be told, or a murder to be done--employed a professional perjurer or a.s.sa.s.sin to do the work, which they were themselves too notorious or too cowardly to execute; our notorious contemporary, the 'Day,' engages smashers out of doors to utter forgeries against individuals, and calls in auxiliary cut-throats to murder the reputation of those who offend him. A black vizarded ruffian (whom we will unmask), who signs the forged name of Trefoil, is at present one of the chief bravoes and bullies in our contemporary's establishment. He is the eunuch who brings the bowstring, and strangles at the order of the Day. We can convict this cowardly slave, and propose to do so. The charge which he has brought against Lord Bangbanagher, because he is a liberal Irish peer, and against the Board of Poor Law Guardians of the Bangbanagher Union, is," &c.

"How did they like the article at your place, Mick?" asked Morgan, "when the captain puts his hand to it he's a tremendous hand at a smasher. He wrote the article in two hours--in--whew--you know where, while the boy was waiting."

"Our governor thinks the public don't mind a straw about these newspaper rows, and has told the docthor to stop answering," said the other. "Them two talked it out together in my room. The docthor would have liked a turn, for he says it's such easy writing, and requires no reading up of a subject; but the governor put a stopper on him."

"The taste for eloquence is going out, Mick," said Morgan.

"'Deed then it is, Morgan," said Mick. "That was fine writing when the docthor wrote in the Phaynix, and he and Condy Roony blazed away at each other day after day."

"And with powder and shot, too, as well as paper," says Morgan. "Faith, the docthor was out twice, and Condy Roony winged his man."

"They are talking about Doctor Boyne and Captain Shandon," Warrington said, "who are the two Irish controversialists of the 'Dawn' and the 'Day,' Dr. Boyne being the Protestant champion, and Captain Shandon the liberal orator. They are the best friends in the world, I believe, in spite of their newspaper controversies; and though they cry out against the English for abusing their country, by Jove they abuse it themselves more in a single article than we should take the pains to do in a dozen volumes. How are you, Doolan?"

"Your servant, Mr. Warrington--Mr. Pendennis, I am delighted to have the honor of seeing ye again. The night's journey on the top of the Alacrity was one of the most agreeable I ever enjoyed in my life, and it was your liveliness and urbanity that made the trip so charming. I have often thought over that happy night, sir, and talked over it to Mrs. Doolan.

I have seen your elegant young friend, Mr. Foker, too, here, sir, not unfrequently. He is an occasional frequenter of this hostelry, and a right good one it is. Mr. Pendennis, when I saw you I was on the Tom and Jerry Weekly Paper; I have now the honor to be sub-editor of the Dawn, one of the best written papers of the empire"--and he bowed very slightly to Mr. Warrington. His speech was unctuous and measured, his courtesy oriental, his tone, when talking with the two Englishmen, quite different to that with which he spoke to his comrade.

"Why the devil will the fellow compliment so?" growled Warrington, with a sneer which he hardly took the pains to suppress. "Psha--who comes here?--all Parna.s.sus is abroad to-night: here's Archer. We shall have some fun. Well, Archer, House up?"

"Haven't been there. I have been," said Archer, with an air of mystery, "where I was wanted. Get me some supper, John--something substantial. I hate your grandees who give you nothing to eat. If it had been at Apsley House, it would have been quite different. The duke knows what I like, and says to the Groom of the Chambers, 'Martin, you will have some cold beef, not too much done, and a pint bottle of pale ale, and some brown sherry, ready in my study as usual: Archer is coming here this evening.'

The duke doesn't eat supper himself, but he likes to see a man enjoy a hearty meal, and he knows that I dine early. A man can't live upon air, be hanged to him."

"Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Pendennis," Warrington said, with great gravity. "Pen, this is Mr. Archer, whom you have heard me talk about. You must know Pen's uncle, the major, Archer, you who know every body."

"Dined with him the day before yesterday at Gaunt House," Archer said.

"We were four--the French emba.s.sador, Steyne, and we two commoners."

"Why, my uncle is in Scot--" Pen was going to break out, but Warrington pressed his foot under the table as a signal for him to be quiet.

"It was about the same business that I have been to the palace to-night,"

Archer went on simply, "and where I've been kept four hours, in an ante-room, with nothing but yesterday's Times, which I knew by heart, as I wrote three of the leading articles myself; and though the lord chamberlain came in four times, and once holding the royal teacup and saucer in his hand, he did not so much as say to me, 'Archer, will you have a cup of tea?'"

"Indeed! what is in the wind now?" asked Warrington--and turning to Pen, added, "You know, I suppose, that when there is any thing wrong at court, they always send for Archer."

"There is something wrong," said Mr. Archer, "and as the story will be all over the town in a day or two I don't mind telling it.--At the last Chantilly races, where I rode Brian Boru for my old friend the Duke de St. Cloud--the old king said to me, Archer, I'm uneasy about Saint Cloud. I have arranged his marriage with the Princess Marie Cunegonde; the peace of Europe depends upon it--for Russia will declare war if the marriage does not take place, and the young fool is so mad about Madame Ma.s.sena, Marshal Ma.s.sena's wife, that he actually refuses to be a party to the marriage. Well, sir, I spoke to Saint Cloud, and having got him into pretty good humor by winning the race, and a good bit of money into the bargain, he said to me, 'Archer, tell the governor I'll think of it.'"

"How do you say governor in French," asked Pen, who piqued himself on knowing that language.

"Oh, we speak in English--I taught him when we were boys, and I saved his life at Twickenham, when he fell out of a punt," Archer said. "I shall never forget the queen's looks as I brought him out of the water.

She gave me this diamond ring, and always calls me Charles to this day."

"Madame Ma.s.sena must be rather an old woman, Archer," Warrington said.

"Dev'lish old--old enough to be his grandmother; I told him so," Archer answered at once. "But those attachments for old women are the deuce and all. That's what the king feels: that's what shocks the poor queen so much. They went away from Paris last Tuesday night, and are living at this present moment at Jaunay's hotel."

"Has there been a private marriage, Archer?" asked Warrington.

"Whether there has or not I don't know," Mr. Archer replied; "all I know is that I was kept waiting four hours at the palace; that I never saw a man in such a state of agitation as the King of Belgium when he came out to speak to me, and that I'm devilish hungry--and here comes some supper."

"He has been pretty well to-night," said Warrington, as the pair went home together: "but I have known him in much greater force, and keeping a whole room in a state of wonder. Put aside his archery practice, that man is both able and honest--a good man of business, an excellent friend, admirable to his family as husband, father, and son."

"What is it makes him pull the long bow in that wonderful manner?"

"An amiable insanity," answered Warrington. "He never did any body harm by his talk, or said evil of any body. He is a stout politician too, and would never write a word or do an act against his party, as many of us do."

"Of _us_! Who are _we_?" asked Pen. "Of what profession is Mr. Archer?"

"Of the Corporation of Goosequill--of the Press, my boy," said Warrington; "of the fourth estate."

"Are you, too, of the craft, then?" Pendennis said.

"We will talk about that another time," answered the other. They were pa.s.sing through the Strand as they talked, and by a newspaper office, which was all lighted up and bright. Reporters were coming out of the place, or rus.h.i.+ng up to it in cabs; there were lamps burning in the editors' rooms, and above, where the compositors were at work: the windows of the building were in a blaze of gas.

"Look at that, Pen," Warrington said. "There she is--the great engine--she never sleeps. She has her emba.s.sadors in every quarter of the world--her couriers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's cabinets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder journal has an agent, at this minute, giving bribes at Madrid; and another inspecting the price of potatoes in Covent Garden. Look! here comes the Foreign Express galloping in. They will be able to give news to Downing-street to-morrow: funds will rise or fall, fortunes be made or lost; Lord B. will get up, and, holding the paper in his hand, and seeing the n.o.ble marquis in his place, will make a great speech; and--and Mr. Doolan will be called away from his supper at the Back Kitchen; for he is foreign sub-editor, and sees the mail on the newspaper sheet before he goes to his own."

And so talking, the friends turned into their chambers, and the dawn was beginning to peep.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

IN WHICH THE PRINTER'S DEVIL COMES TO THE DOOR.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Pen in the midst of his revels and enjoyments, humble as they were, and moderate in cost if not in kind, saw an awful sword hanging over him which must drop down before long and put an end to his follies and feasting. His money was very nearly spent. His club subscription had carried away a third part of it. He had paid for the chief articles of furniture with which he had supplied his little bed-room: in fine, he was come to the last five-pound note in his pocket-book, and could think of no method of providing a successor; for our friend had been bred up like a young prince as yet, or as a child in arms whom his mother feeds when it cries out.

Warrington did not know what his comrade's means were. An only child, with a mother at her country house, and an old dandy of an uncle who dined with a great man every day, Pen might have a large bank at his command for any thing that the other knew. He had gold chains and a dressing-case fit for a lord. His habits were those of an aristocrat--not that he was expensive upon any particular point, for he dined and laughed over the pint of porter and the plate of beef from the cook's shop with perfect content and good appet.i.te--but he could not adopt the penny-wise precautions of life. He could not give twopence to a waiter: he could not refrain from taking a cab if he had a mind to do so, or if it rained, and as surely as he took the cab he overpaid the driver. He had a scorn for cleaned gloves and minor economies. Had he been bred to ten thousand a year he could scarcely have been more free-handed; and for a beggar, with a sad story, or a couple of pretty piteous-faced children, he never could resist putting his hand into his pocket. It was a sumptuous nature, perhaps, that could not be brought to regard money; a natural generosity and kindness; and possibly a petty vanity that was pleased with praise, even with the praise of waiters and cabmen. I doubt whether the wisest of us know what our own motives are, and whether some of the actions of which we are the very proudest will not surprise us when we trace them, as we shall one day, to their source.

Warrington then did not know, and Pen had not thought proper to confide to his friend, his pecuniary history. That Pen had been wild and wickedly extravagant at college, the other was aware; every body at college was extravagant and wild; but how great the son's expenses had been, and how small the mother's means, were points which had not been as yet submitted to Mr. Warrington's examination.

At last the story came out, while Pen was grimly surveying the change for the last five-pound note, as it lay upon the tray from the public-house by Mr. Warrington's pot of ale.

"It is the last rose of summer," said Pen; "its blooming companions have gone long ago; and behold the last one of the garland has shed its leaves;" and he told Warrington the whole story, which we know, of his mother's means, of his own follies, of Laura's generosity; during which time Warrington smoked his pipe and listened intent.

"Impecuniosity will do you good," Pen's friend said, knocking out the ashes at the end of the narration; "I don't know any thing more wholesome for a man--for an honest man, mind you--for another, the medicine loses its effect--than a state of tick. It is an alterative and a tonic; it keeps your moral man in a perpetual state of excitement: as a man who is riding at a fence, or has his opponent's single stick before him, is forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, and braces himself to repulse or overcome it; a little necessity brings out your pluck if you have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. You will discover what a number of things you can do without when you have no money to buy them. You won't want new gloves and varnished boots, eau de Cologne, and cabs to ride in. You have been bred up as a molly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single man who has health and brains, and can't find a livelihood in the world, doesn't deserve to stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny and jump over Waterloo Bridge. Let him steal a leg of mutton and be transported and get out of the country--he is not fit to live in it. Dixi; I have spoken. Give us another pull at the pale ale."

"You have certainly spoken; but how is one to live?" said Pen. "There is beef and bread in plenty in England, but you must pay for it with work or money. And who will take my work? and what work can I do?"

Warrington burst out laughing, "Suppose we advertise in the Times," he said, "for an usher's place at a cla.s.sical and commercial academy--A gentleman, B.A. of St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, and who was plucked for his degree--"

"Confound you," cried Pen.

"--Wishes to give lessons in cla.s.sics and mathematics, and the rudiments of the French language; he can cut hair, attend to the younger pupils, and play a second on the piano with the daughters of the princ.i.p.al.

Address A. P., Lamb Court, Temple."

"Go on," said Pen, growling.