The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a gentleman.
It takes much time and careful saving for a provincial doctor, whose
gains are not very large, to lay by enough money wherewith to purchase a
house and land: but besides our friend's own frugality and prudence,
fortune aided him considerably in his endeavour, and brought him to the
point which he so panted to attain. He laid out some money very
advantageously in the purchase of a house and small estate close upon the
village of Clavering before mentioned. Words cannot describe, nor did he
himself ever care to confess to any one, his pride when he found himself
a real landed proprietor, and could walk over acres of which he was the
master. A lucky purchase which he had made of shares in a copper-mine
added very considerably to his wealth, and he realised with great
prudence while this mine was still at its full vogue. Finally, he sold
his business at Bath, to Mr. Parkins, for a handsome sum of ready money,
and for an annuity to be paid to him during a certain number of years
after he had for ever retired from the handling of the mortar and pestle.

Arthur Pendennis, his son, was eight years old at the time of this event,
so that it is no wonder that the latter, who left Bath and the surgery so
young, should forget the existence of such a place almost entirely, and
that his father's hands had ever been dirtied by the compounding of
odious pills, or the preparation of filthy plasters. The old man never
spoke about the shop himself, never alluded to it; called in the medical
practitioner of Clavering to attend his family when occasion arrived;
sunk the black breeches and stockings altogether; attended market and
sessions, and wore a bottle-green coat and brass buttons with drab
gaiters, just as if he had been an English gentleman all his life. He
used to stand at his lodge-gate, and see the coaches come in, and bow
gravely to the guards and coachmen as they touched their hats and drove
by. It was he who founded the Clavering Book Club: and set up the