drawing-room, any of the articles of furniture? Mr. Warrington's
character as a humorist, was known to Mr. Bacon: "I never can make
that chap out," the publisher was heard to say, "or tell whether he is
in earnest or only chaffing."

It is very possible that Mr. Bacon would have set the two gentlemen
down as impostors altogether, but that there chanced to be on the
breakfast-table certain cards of invitation which the post of the
morning had brought in for Pen, and which happened to come from some
very exalted personages of the _beau-monde_, into which our young man
had his introduction. Looking down upon these, Bacon saw that the
Marchioness of Steyne would be at home to Mr. Arthur Pendennis upon a
given day, and that another lady of distinction proposed to have
dancing at her house upon a certain future evening. Warrington saw the
admiring publisher eying these documents. "Ah," said he, with an air
of simplicity, "Pendennis is one of the most affable young men I ever
knew, Mr. Bacon. Here is a young fellow that dines with all the great
men in London, and yet he'll take his mutton-chop with you and me
quite contentedly. There's nothing like the affability of the old
English gentleman."

"O, no, nothing," said Mr. Bacon.

"And you wonder why he should go on living up three pair of stairs
with me, don't you, now? Well, it _is_ a queer taste. But we are fond
of each other; and as I can't afford to live in a grand house, he
comes and stays in these rickety old chambers with me. He's a man that
can afford to live any where."

"I fancy it don't cost him much _here_," thought Mr. Bacon; and the