but, on the contrary, devoured all the novels, plays, and poetry, on
which he could lay his hands. He never was flogged, but it was a wonder
how he escaped the whipping-post. When he had money he spent it royally
in tarts for himself and his friends; he has been known to disburse nine
and sixpence out of ten shillings awarded to him in a single day. When he
had no funds he went on tick. When he could get no credit he went
without, and was almost as happy. He has been known to take a thrashing
for a crony without saying a word; but a blow, ever so slight from a
friend, would make him roar. To fighting he was averse from his earliest
youth, as indeed to physic, the Greek Grammar, or any other exertion, and
would engage in none of them, except at the last extremity. He seldom if
ever told lies, and never bullied little boys. Those masters or seniors
who were kind to him, he loved with boyish ardour. And though the Doctor,
when he did not know his Horace, or could not construe his Greek play,
said that that boy Pendennis was a disgrace to the school, a candidate
for ruin in this world, and perdition in the next; a profligate who would
most likely bring his venerable father to ruin and his mother to a
dishonoured grave, and the like--yet as the Doctor made use of these
compliments to most of the boys in the place (which has not turned out an
unusual number of felons and pickpockets), little Pen, at first uneasy
and terrified by these charges, became gradually accustomed to hear them;
and he has not, in fact, either murdered his parents, or committed any
act worthy of transportation or hanging up to the present day.

There were many of the upper boys, among the Cistercians with whom
Pendennis was educated, who assumed all the privileges of men long before
they quitted that seminary. Many of them, for example, smoked cigars--and
some had already begun the practice of inebriation. One had fought a duel
with an Ensign in a marching, in consequence of a row at the theatre--
another actually kept a buggy and horse at a livery stable in Covent