boy. Indeed, I believe that for some little time at college, and during his first journeys abroad, Mr. Philip spent rather more than the income of his maternal inheritance, being freely supplied by his father, who told him not to stint himself. He was a sumptuous man, Dr. Firmin-open-handed-subscribing to many charities-a lover of solemn good cheer. The Doctor's dinners and the Doctor's equipages were models in their way; and I remember the sincere respect with which my uncle the Major (the family guide in such matters) used to speak of Dr. Firmin's taste. "No duchess in London, sir," he would say, "drove better horses than Mrs. Firmin. Sir George Warrender, sir, could not give a better dinner, sir, than that to which we sat down yesterday." And for the exercise of these civic virtues the Doctor had the hearty respect of the good Major. "Don't tell me, sir," on the other hand, Lord Ringwood would say; "I dined with, the fellow once-a swaggering fellow, sir; but a servile fellow. The way he bowed and flattered was perfectly absurd. Those fellows think we like it—and we may. Even at my age, I like flattery-any quantity of it; and not what you call delicate, but strong, sir. I like a man to kneel down and kiss my shoe-strings. I have my own opinion of him afterwards, but that is what I like—what all men like; and that is what Firmin gave in quantities. But you could see that his house was monstrously expensive. His dinner was excellent, and you saw it was good every day-not like your dinners, my good Maria; not like your wines, Twysden, which, hang it, I can't swallow, unless I send 'em in myself. Even at my own house, I don't give that kind of wine on common occasions which Firmin used to give. I drink the best myself, of course, and give it to some who know; but I don't give it to common fellows, who come to hunting dinners, or to girls and boys who are dancing at my balls." "Yes; Mr. Firmin's dinners were very handsome—and a pretty end came of the handsome dinners!" sighed Mrs. Twysden. "That's not the question; I am only speaking about the fellow's meat and drink, and they were both good. And it's my opinion, that fellow will have a good dinner wherever he goes." I had the fortune to be present at one of these feasts, which Lord Ringwood attended, and at which I met Philip's trustee, General Baynes, who had just arrived from India. I remember now the smallest details of the little dinner,-the brightness of the old plate, on which the Doctor prided himself, and the quiet comfort, not to say splendour, of the entertainment. The General seemed to take a great liking to Philip, whose grandfather had been his special friend and comrade in arms. He thought he saw something of Philip Ringwood in Philip Firmin's face. "Ah, indeed!" growls Lord Ringwood. "You ain't a bit like him," says the downright General. "Never saw a handsomer or more open-looking fellow than Philip Ringwood." 66 "Oh! I daresay I looked pretty open myself forty years ago," said my Lord; now I'm shut, I suppose. I don't see the least likeness in this young man to my brother." "That is some sherry as old as the century,” whispers the host; "it is the same the Prince Regent liked so at a Mansion House dinner, five-and-twenty years ago." "Never knew anything about wine; was always tippling liqueurs and punch. What do you give for this sherry, Doctor?" The Doctor sighed, and looked up to the chandelier. "Drink it while it lasts, my good Lord; but don't ask me the price. The fact is, I don't like to say what I gave for it." "You need not stint yourself in the price of sherry, Doctor," cries the General gaily; you have but one son, and he has a fortune of his own, as I happen to know. You haven't dipped it, Master Philip?" "I fear, sir, I may have exceeded my income sometimes, in the last three years; but my father has helped me." When I "Exceeded nine hundred a year! Upon my word! was a sub, my friends gave me fifty pounds a year, and I never was a shilling in debt! What are men coming to now?" "If doctors drink Prince Regent's sherry at ten guineas a dozen, what can you expect of their sons, General Baynes?" grumbles my Lord. "My father gives you his best, my Lord," says Philip gaily; "if you know of any better, he will get it for you. Si non his utere mecum ! Please to pass me that decanter, Pen!" I thought the old lord did not seem ill pleased at the young man's freedom; and now, as I recall it, think I can remember that a peculiar silence and anxiety seemed to weigh upon our hostupon him whose face was commonly so anxious and sad. The famous sherry, which had made many voyages to Indian climes before it acquired its exquisite flavour, had travelled some three or four times round the Doctor's polished table, when Brice, his man, entered with a letter on his silver tray. Perhaps Philip's eyes and mine exchanged glances in which ever so small a scintilla of mischief might sparkle. The Doctor often had letters when he was entertaining his friends; and his patients had a knack of falling ill at awkward times. "Gracious Heavens!" cries the Doctor, when he read the despatch-it was a telegraphic message. The poor Grand Duke!" "What Grand Duke ?" asks the surly Lord of Ringwood. My earliest patron and friend—the Grand Duke of Gröningen! Seized this morning at eleven at Potzendorff! Has sent for me. I promised to go to him if ever he had need of me! I must go! I can save the night-train yet. General! our visit to the City must be deferred till my return. Get a portmanteau, Brice; and call a cab at once. Philip will entertain my friends for the evening. My dear Lord, you won't mind an old doctor leaving you to attend an old patient? I will write from Gröningen. I shall be there on Friday morning. Farewell, gentlemen! Brice, another bottle of that sherry! I pray, don't let anybody stir! God bless you, Philip my boy!" And with this the Doctor went up, took his son by the hand, and laid the other very kindly on the young man's shoulder. Then he made a bow round the table to his guests-one of his graceful bows, for which he was famous. I can see the sad smile on his face now, and the light from the chandelier over the dining-table glancing from his shining forehead and casting deep shadows on to his cheek from his heavy brows. The departure was a little abrupt, and of course cast somewhat of a gloom upon the company. 66 'My carriage ain't ordered till ten-must go on sitting here, I suppose. Confounded life doctor's must be! Called up any hour in the night! Get their fees! Must go!" growled the great man of the party. "People are glad enough to have them when they are ill, my Lord. I think I have heard that once when you were at Ryde The great man started back as if a little shock of cold water had fallen on him; and then looked at Philip with not unfriendly glances. "Treated for gout-so he did. Very well, too!" said my Lord; and whispered, not inaudibly, "Cool hand that boy!" And then his Lordship fell to talk with General Baynes about his campaigning, and his early acquaintance with his own brother, Philip's grandfather. The General did not care to brag about his own feats of arms, but was loud in praises of his old comrade. Philip was pleased to hear his grandsire so well spoken of. The General had known Dr. Firmin's father also, who likewise had been a colonel in the famous old Peninsular army. "A Tartar that fellow was, and no mistake!" said the good officer. "Your father has a strong look of him; and you have a glance of him at times. But you remind me of Philip Ringwood not a little; and you could not belong to a better man." "Ha!" says my Lord. There had been differences between him and his brother. He may have been thinking of days when they were friends. Lord Ringwood now graciously asked if General Baynes was staying in London? But the General had only come to do this piece of business, which must now be delayed. He was too poor to live in London. He must look out for a country place, where he and his six children could live cheaply. "Three boys at school, and one at college, Mr. Philip-you know what that must cost; though, thank my stars, my college boy does not spend nine hundred a year. Nine hundred! Where should we be if he did?" In fact, the days of nabobs are long over, and the General had come back to his native country with only very small means for the support of a great family. When my Lord's carriage came, he departed, and the other guests presently took their leave. The General, who was a bachelor for the nonce, remained a while, and we three prattled over cheroots in Philip's smoking-room. It was a night like a hundred I have spent there, and yet how well I remember it! We talked about Philip's future prospects, and he communicated his intentions to us in his lordly way. As for practising at the bar: "No, sir,” he said, in reply to General Baynes's queries, "he should not make much hand of that; shouldn't if he were ever so poor. He had his own money, and his father's ;" and he condescended to say that "he might, perhaps, try for Parliament should an eligible opportunity offer." "Here's a fellow born with a silver spoon in his mouth," says the General, as we walked away together. fortune to begin with; a fortune to inherit. My fortune was two thousand pounds, and the price of my two first commissions; and when I die my children will not be quite so well off as their father was when he began!" "A Having parted with the old officer at his modest sleeping quarters near his club, I walked to my own house, little thinking that yonder cigar, of which I had shaken some of the ashes in Philip's smoking-room, was to be the last tobacco I ever should smoke there. The pipe was smoked out. The wine was drunk. When that door closed on me, it closed for the last time—at least was never more to admit me as Philip's, as Dr. Firmin's, guest and friend. I pass the place often now. My youth comes back to me as I gaze at those blank shining windows. I see myself a boy and Philip a child; and his fair mother; and his father, the hospitable, the melancholy, the magnificent. I wish I could have helped him. I wish somehow he had borrowed money. He never did. He gave me his often. I have never seen him since that night when his own door closed upon him. On the second day after the Doctor's departure, as I was at breakfast with my family, I received the following letter : "MY DEAR PENDENNIS,-Could I have seen you in private on Tuesday night, I might have warned you of the calamity which was hanging over my house. But to what good end? That you should know a few weeks, hours, before what all the world will ring with to-morrow? Neither you nor I, nor one whom we both love, would have been the happier for knowing my misfortunes a few hours sooner. In four-and-twenty hours every club in London will be busy with talk of the departure of the celebrated Dr. Firmin—the wealthy Dr. Firmin; a few months more and (I have strict and confidential reason to believe) hereditary rank would have been mine, but Sir George Firmin would have been an insolvent man, and his son Sir Philip a beggar. Perhaps the thought of this honour has been one of the reasons which has determined me on expatriating myself sooner than I otherwise needed to have done. 66 George Firmin, the honoured, the wealthy physician, and his son a beggar? I see you are startled at the news! You wonder how, with a great practice, and no great ostensible expenses, such ruin should have come upon me upon him. It has seemed as if for years past Fate has been determined to make war upon George Brand Firmin; and who can battle against Fate? A man universally admitted to be of good judgment, I have embarked in mercantile speculations the most promising. Everything upon which I laid my hand has crumbled to ruin; but I can say with the Roman bard, 'Impavidum ferient ruinæ.' And, almost penniless, almost aged, an exile driven from my country, I seek another where I do not despair—I even have a firm belief that I shall be enabled to repair my shattered fortunes! My race has never been deficient in courage, and Philip and Philip's father must use all theirs, so as to be enabled to face the dark times which menace them. 'Si celeres quatit pennas Fortuna,' we must resign what she gave us, and bear our calamity with unshaken hearts! "There is a man, I own to you, whom I cannot, I must not, face. General Baynes has just come from India, with but very small savings, I fear; and these are jeopardised by his imprudence and my most cruel and unexpected misfortune. I need not tell you that my all would have been my boy's. My will, made long since, will be found in the tortoiseshell secretaire standing in my consulting-room under the picture of Abraham offering up Isaac. In it you will see that everything, except annuities to old and deserving servants and a legacy to one excellent and faithful woman |