We pass through a passage into
a back room, and are received with a roar of welcome from a crowd of men,
almost invisible in the smoke.
"I am right glad to see thee, boy!" cries a cheery voice (that will never
troll a chorus more). "We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle youth! and
that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the Academy in vain. Mayhap thou
frightenedst the courtly school with barbarous visages of grisly war.--
Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look! Resplendent swell! untwine thy
choker white, and I will either stand a glass of grog, or thou shalt pay
the like for me, my lad, and tell us of the fashionable world." Thus
spake the brave old Tom Sarjent,--also one of the Press, one of the old
boys: a good old scholar with a good old library of books, who had taken
his seat any time these forty years by the chimney-fire in this old
Haunt: where painters, sculptors, men of letters, actors, used to
congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough kindly communion, and many a
day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy street ere they parted, and
Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed the hospitable gates of the
Haunt.
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