
discomfort, crime, annoyance seemed to come out of this transaction in which the
luckless boy had engaged; and she longed more than ever to see him out of
Chatteris for a while - anywhere removed from the woman who had brought him into
so much trouble.
    Pen, when remonstrated with by this fond parent, and angrily rebuked by the
Doctor for his violence and ferocious intentions, took the matter au grand
sérieux, with the happy conceit and gravity of youth - said that he himself was
very sorry for the affair; that the insult had come upon him without the
slightest provocation on his part; that he would permit no man to insult him
upon this head without vindicating his own honour; and appealing with great
dignity to his uncle, asked whether he could have acted otherwise as a gentleman
than as he did in resenting the outrage offered to him, and in offering
satisfaction to the person chastised?
    »Vous allez trop vite, my good sir,« said the uncle, rather puzzled, for he
had been indoctrinating his nephew with some of his own notions upon the point
of honour - old-world notions, savouring of the camp and pistol a great deal
more than our soberer opinions of the present day - »between men of the world, I
don't say; but between two schoolboys, this sort of thing is ridiculous, my dear
boy - perfectly ridiculous.«
    »It is extremely wicked, and unlike my son,« said Mrs. Pendennis, with tears
in her eyes, and bewildered with the obstinacy of the boy.
    Pen kissed her, and said with great pomposity, »Women, dear mother, don't
understand these matters. I put myself into Foker's hands; I had no other course
to pursue.«
    Major Pendennis grinned and shrugged his shoulders. The young ones were
certainly making great progress, he thought. Mrs. Pendennis declared that that
Foker was a wicked, horrid little wretch, and was sure that he would lead her
dear boy into mischief, if Pen went to the same College with him. »I have a
great mind not to let him go at all,« she said; and only that she remembered
that the lad's father had always destined him for the College in which he had
had his own brief education, very likely the fond mother would have put a veto
upon his going to the University.
    That he was to go, and at the next October term, had been arranged between
all the authorities who presided over the lad's welfare. Foker had promised to
introduce him to the right set
