"My dear Captain Costigan--I give you my word that my brother did not
leave a shilling to his son Arthur."

"Are ye joking with me, Meejor Pendennis?" cried Jack Costigan. "Are ye
thrifling with the feelings of a father and a gentleman?"

"I am telling you the honest truth," said Major Pendennis. "Every
shilling my brother had, he left to his widow: with a partial reversion,
it is true, to the boy. But she is a young woman, and may marry if he
offends her--or she may outlive him, for she comes of an uncommonly
long-lived family. And I ask you, as a gentleman and a man of the world,
what allowance can my sister, Mrs. Pendennis, make to her son out of five
hundred a year, which is all her fortune,--that shall enable him to
maintain himself and your daughter in the rank befitting such an
accomplished young lady?"

"Am I to understand, sir, that the young gentleman, your nephew, and whom
I have fosthered and cherished as the son of me bosom, is an imposther
who has been thrifling with the affections of me beloved child?"
exclaimed the General, with an outbreak of wrath.--"Have you yourself
been working upon the feelings of the young man's susceptible nature to
injuice him to break off an engagement, and with it me adored Emily's
heart? Have a care, sir, how you thrifle with the honour of John
Costigan. If I thought any mortal man meant to do so, be heavens I'd have
his blood, sir--were he old or young."

"Mr. Costigan!" cried out the Major.

"Mr. Costigan can protect his own and his daughter's honour, and will,