How
many young men in the Temple smoke a cigar after breakfast as they read
the Times? My friend and companion of those days, and all days, Mr.
George Warrington, was employed with his short pipe, and was not in the
least disconcerted at the appearance of the visitors, as he would not
have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped in.
Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, while the Colonel
shook me cordially by the hand. No traces of yesterday's wrath were
visible on his face, but a friendly smile lighted his bronzed
countenance, as he too looked round the old room with its dingy curtains
and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof-sheets, blotted
manuscripts, and books for review, empty soda-water bottles, cigar-boxes,
and what not.
"I went off in a flame of fire last night," says the Colonel, "and being
cooled this morning, thought it but my duty to call on Mr. Pendennis and
apologise for my abrupt behaviour. The conduct of that tipsy old Captain
--what is his name?--was so abominable, that I could not bear that Clive
should be any longer in the same room with him, and I went off without
saying a word of thanks or good-night to my son's old friend.
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