"Who goes there? brother, quickly tell!" sang out the voice from the bed.
"What! Pendennis again? Is your Mamma acquainted with your absence? Did
you sup with us last night? No stop--who supped with us last night,
Stoopid?"

"There was the three officers, sir, and Mr. Bingley, sir, and Mr.
Costigan, sir," the man answered, who received all Mr. Foker's remarks
with perfect gravity.

"Ah yes: the cup and merry jest went round. We chanted and I remember I
wanted to fight a postboy. Did I thrash him, Stoopid?"

"No, sir. Fight didn't come off, sir," said Stoopid, still with perfect
gravity. He was arranging Mr. Foker's dressing-case--a trunk, the gift of
a fond mother, without which the young fellow never travelled. It
contained a prodigious apparatus in plate; a silver dish, a silver mug,
silver boxes and bottles for all sorts of essences, and a choice of
razors ready against the time when Mr. Foker's beard should come.

"Do it some other day," said the young fellow, yawning and throwing up
his little lean arms over his head. "No, there was no fight; but there
was chanting. Bingley chanted, I chanted, the General chanted--Costigan I
mean.--Did you ever hear him sing 'The Little Pig under the Bed,' Pen?"

"The man we met yesterday," said Pen, all in a tremor, "the father
of---"

"Of the Fotheringay,--the very man. Ain't she a Venus, Pen?"

"Please sir, Mr. Costigan's in the sittin-room, sir, and says, sir, you