Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young
nephew's father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most gallant and
distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable East
India Company;--and that his uncles, the Colonel's half-brothers, were
the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome,
Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryanstone Square, and Marblehead, Sussex, and
Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome and Park Lane, "whom to name," says Mr.
Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he decorated the commonest
circumstances of life, "is to designate two of the merchant princes of
the wealthiest city the world has ever known; and one, if not two, of the
leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round the throne of the most
elegant and refined of European sovereigns." I promised Mr. Honeyman to
do what I could for the boy; and he proceeded to take leave of his little
nephew in my presence in terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and
very slender green purse, from which he extracted the sum of
two-and-sixpence, which he presented to the child, who received the money
with rather a queer twinkle in his blue eyes.

After that day's school, I met my little protege in the neighbourhood of
the pastrycook's, regaling himself with raspberry-tarts. "You must not
spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you," said I (having
perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn), "in tarts and
ginger-beer."

The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, "It don't
matter, sir, for I've got lots more."

"How much?" says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation
used to be, when a new boy came to the school, "What's your name? Who's
your father? and how much money have you got?"