amusing? Yonder goes Augustus
Tomkins, working his way through the rooms to that far corner where
demure Miss Hopkins is seated, to whom the stupid grinning Bumpkins
thinks he is making himself agreeable. Yonder sits Miss Fanny distraite,
and yet trying to smile as the captain is talking his folly the parson
his glib compliments. And see, her face lights up all of a sudden: her
eyes beam with delight at the captain's stories, and at that delightful
young clergyman likewise. It is because Augustus has appeared; their
eyes only meet for one semi-second, but that is enough for Miss Fanny.
Go on, captain, with your twaddle!--Proceed, my reverend friend, with
your smirking commonplaces! In the last two minutes the world has
changed for Miss Fanny. That moment has come for which she has been
fidgeting and longing and scheming all day! How different an interest,
I say, has a meeting of people for a philosopher who knows of a few such
little secrets, to that which your vulgar looker-on feels who comes but
to eat the ices, and stare at the ladies' dresses and beauty! There are
two frames of mind under which London society is bearable to a man--to
be an actor in one of those sentimental performances above hinted at;
or to be a spectator and watch it. But as for the mere dessus de
cartes--would not an arm-chair and the dullest of books be better than
that dull game?

So I not only became Clive's confidant in this affair, but took a
pleasure in extracting the young fellow's secrets from him, or rather
in encouraging him to pour them forth. Thus was the great part of the
previous tale revealed to me: thus Jack Belsize's misadventures, of the
first part of which we had only heard in London (and whither he returned
presently to be reconciled to his father, after his elder brother's
death). Thus my Lord Kew's secret history came into my possession;
let us hope for the public's future delectation, and the chronicler's
private advantage. And many a night until daylight did appear has poor
Clive stamped his chamber or my own, pouring his story out to me, his
griefs and raptures; recalling, in his wild young way, recollections
of Ethel's sayings and doings; uttering descriptions of her beauty, and
raging against the cruelty which she exhibited towards him.

As soon as the new confidant heard the name of the young lover's
charmer, to do Mr. Pendennis justice, he endeavoured to fling as much
cold water upon Clive's flame as a small private