eave him anything?"

The Major had sunk every shilling he could scrape together on an
annuity, and of course was going to leave Pen nothing; but he did not
tell Foker this. "How much do you think a Major on half-pay can save?"
he asked. "If these people have been looking at him as a fortune, they
are utterly mistaken-and-and you have made me the happiest man in the
world."

"Sir to you," said Mr. Foker, politely, and when they parted for
the night they shook hands with the greatest cordiality; the younger
gentleman promising the elder not to leave Chatteris without a further
conversation in the morning. And as the Major went up to his room, and
Mr. Foker smoked his cigar against the door pillars of the George, Pen,
very likely, ten miles off; was lying in bed kissing the letter from his
Emily.

The next morning, before Mr. Foker drove off in his drag, the
insinuating Major had actually got a letter of Miss Rouncy's in his own
pocket-book. Let it be a lesson to women how they write. And in very
high spirits Major Pendennis went to call upon Doctor Portman at the
Deanery, and told him what happy discoveries he had made on the previous
night. As they sate in confidential conversation in the Dean's oak
breakfast-parlour they could look across the lawn and see Captain
Costigan's window, at which poor Pen had been only too visible some
three weeks since. The Doctor was most indignant against Mrs. Creed,
the landlady, for her duplicity, in concealing Sir Derby Oaks's constant
visits to her lodgers, and threatened to excommunicate her out of the
Cathedral. But the wary Major thought that all things were for the best;
and, having taken counsel with himself over night, felt himself quite
strong enough to go and face Captain Costigan.

"I'm going to fight the dragon," he said, with a laugh, to Doctor
Portman.

"And I shrive you, sir, and bid good fortune go with you," answered the
Doctor. Perhaps he and Mrs. Portman and Miss Myra, as they sate with
their friend, the Dean's lady, in her drawing-room, looked up more than
once at the enemy's window to see if they could perceive any signs of
the combat.

The Major walked round, according to the directions given him, and soon
found Mrs. Creed's little door. He passed it, and as he ascended to
Captain Costigan's apartment, he could hear a stamping of feet, and a
great shouting of "Ha, ha!" within.

"It's Sir Derby Oaks taking his fencing lesson," said the child, who
piloted Ma