s second year, when Miss Fotheringay made her chief hit in London,
and scores of prints were published of her, Pen had one of these hung in his
bedroom, and confided to the men of his set how awfully, how wildly, how madly,
how passionately he had loved that woman. He showed them in confidence the
verses that he had written to her; and his brow would darken, his eyes roll, his
chest heave with emotion as he recalled that fatal period of his life, and
described the woes and agonies which he had suffered. The verses were copied
out, handed about, sneered at, admired, passed from coterie to coterie. There
are few things which elevate a lad in the estimation of his brother boys more
than to have a character for a great and romantic passion. Perhaps there is
something noble in it at all times - among very young men, it is considered
heroic. Pen was pronounced a tremendous fellow. They said he had almost
committed suicide; that he had fought a duel with a baronet about her. Freshmen
pointed him out to each other. As at the promenade time at two o'clock he
swaggered out of College, surrounded by his cronies, he was famous to behold. He
was elaborately attired. He would ogle the ladies who came to lionize the
University, and passed before him on the arms of happy gownsmen; and gave his
opinion upon their personal charms, or their toilettes, with the gravity of a
critic whose experience entitled him to speak with authority. Men used to say
that they had been walking with Pendennis, and were as pleased to be seen in his
company as some of us would be if we walked with a duke down Pall Mall. He and
the Proctor capped each other as they met, as if they were rival powers, and the
men hardly knew which was the greater.
    In fact, in the course of his second year, Arthur Pendennis had become one
of the men of fashion in the University. It is curious to watch that facile
admiration, and simple fidelity of youth. They hang round a leader - and wonder
at him, and love him, and imitate him. No generous boy ever lived, I suppose,
that has not had some wonderment of admiration for another boy; and Monsieur Pen
at Oxbridge had his school, his faithful band of friends, and his rivals. When
the young men heard at the haberdashers' shops that Mr. Pendennis of Boniface
had just ordered a crimson satin cravat, you would see a couple of dozen crimson
satin cravats in Main Street in the course
