The things we do!

Newcome orally
delivered it to me at Bays's Club.
"What," said I, turning round to an old man of the world, who happened to
be in the room at the time, "what do these people mean by asking a fellow
to dinner in August, and taking me up after dropping me for two years?"
"My good fellow," says my friend--it was my kind old Uncle Major
Pendennis, indeed--"I have lived long enough about town never to ask
myself questions of that sort. In the world people drop you and take you
up every day. You know Lady Cheddar by sight? I have known her husband
for forty years: I have stayed with them in the country, for weeks at a
time. She knows me as well as she knows King Charles at Charing Cross,
and a doosid deal better, and yet for a whole season she will drop me--
pass me by, as if there was no such person in the world. Well, sir, what
do I do? I never see her. I give you my word I am never conscious of her
existence; and if I meet her at dinner, I'm no more aware of her than the
fellows in the play are of Banquo.


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